Living in a community-style dorm is actually the best
Sharing the bathroom is literal hell though
It’s common knowledge that college dorm rooms suck pretty much across the board. Everybody knows it. You might think on your freshman move-in day, “It can only go up from here…right?” Wrong.
I have a community-style dorm, meaning our whole floor, which is roughly 40 girls, shares two bathrooms. From what I’ve heard, it’s kind of like parenting in the sense that you never get to poop or shower alone.
Good stuff, right?
Sure, community dorms suck a lot of the time, but it’s like taking care of your friend after she’s had WAY too much to drink — there’s some resentment there, but at the end of the day, you still tie her hair up and wipe the puke from her mouth out of love. Here are all of the great/bad/hilarious things you’ll learn to love about dorm life.
You make friends more easily
If you don’t make friends with them when you’re both brushing your teeth and the automatic soap dispenser spits out soap all over your toothbrush, then you definitely will when you hear your neighbor and her boyfriend fighting over his Tinder. The walls are paper thin. Everybody knows everybody’s business, but that’s okay because its kind of like Vegas — what happens in Massey stays in Massey.
Everything goes bump in the night
The dorm you’re living in is most likely 40+ years old, meaning literally anything could have happened in this room before you got here. So when your micro-fridge dings in the middle of the night, or something randomly falls off of your desk, it’s probably Katrina (my friendly ghost who has serious FOMO and always has to be involved). Learn to love your Katrina, and let these occurrences bond you and your roomie(s).
Vols help Vols
Who really knows why the girl at the other end of the hall needs to borrow your laptop — you just let her. In turn, when your neighbor hears you having a mental breakdown over Stats homework, she’ll bring you tissues. When you live so close together, you learn to help each other out, even if you’re pissed off because the girl down the hall always pops in uninvited.
Something’s always poppin’
Whether it’s me and my girls scream-singing ‘Bad Blood’ or a random pancake dinner in the lounge, there’s usually something to do and there’s always someone to hang out with. There will most likely be a person on your floor for everything, whether you want to run down the hallway in ridiculous skunk pajamas or chill out and watch American Horror Story. Heck, maybe you could even join your neighbors when they come home plastered on Thursday night.
Dramatic bathroom experiences are a given
Until you’ve lived it, you can’t really grasp how empowering it is to pee while someone listens to ‘Hello’ by Adele in the shower, or how weird it is to find a toothbrush and all of its wrappings in the toilet for no reason. The bathroom is always lit, no matter the time of day.
Awkward sex stories are plentiful
Remember when I said the walls are paper thin? Yeah, I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve walked down the hallway and heard people having sex. It doesn’t matter if it’s 10:30 on a Saturday morning or midnight on a Tuesday — Katrina isn’t the only one knocking. Even though it’s a slightly weird situation to be in, it’s a great story to tell later.
What the f*** is that smell?
Your dorm is literally always going to smell terrible unless your windows are constantly open AND you have some sort of room diffuser. It’s going to smell like whatever food ya girls are cooking (probably popcorn, lets get real), but most of the time it’s just going to smell like a foot. You adapt eventually.
Roommates can actually be tolerable
The roommate situation can be tricky. There are four types of roommate relationships I’ve witnessed: love ’em, hate ’em, somewhere in between, and nonexistent. I could be biased, but I think the ‘somewhere in between’ relationship is the best, because there aren’t ever really any extreme feelings toward her, but at least we speak on a regular basis… unlike my friend Jacob and his roommate. Seriously, we aren’t even sure if his name is Bryan or Ryan.
Most days dorm life sucks — I’m not gonna lie to you. However, dorm life is also one of my favorite parts of college, because you will always have a story to tell. You’ll probably make some of your best friends there, because you’re all stuck in a sort of shit-hole together. Turn the sucky things into something funny and remember to love your dorm, no matter how problematic it is.