Dorm Life at Its Best

Dorm Life at its Best

The perception people have of dorms in general is definitely not what dorms are really like. Here at Valdosta State, dorm life would be more compared to life in jail. The living environment isn't the greatest in dorms. Living on campus in a dorm is supposed to be homey, like your home away from home, but that is not the case. Dorm rooms are very small, and it's hard living with someone else in such a small spaces. Along with being confined to a small place, there is no privacy. Many people have problems with roommates, and being in a 10 x 10 room with a person you hate is not a very ideal situation. Because of all of this I have come up with a proposal to change dorms as we know them to something completely different and a lot more enjoyable to the future college students here at VSU. I want to propose dorm renovations and how roommates are selected.

The dorms that we live in now are far from the best. We live in a 10 x 10 box; well that's how it seems anyway. Our dorms have 2 beds, 2 desks, 2 closets, and a sink. We got lucky with the sink, but that doesn't make living in our hall any better than anywhere else. In the little rooms we also have to fit our TV, refrigerator and a microwave. With everything in place there is just enough room to walk around. One thing that causes problems in storage, storage in the dorms is very limited. We have an adjustable thermostat so we can control our own room temperature, but it often breaks and air conditioning goes out; that's no fun. We don't have bathrooms and not having a bathroom in our rooms is a pain in the butt. Why would anyone want to walk down the hallway at 2am just to go to the bathroom? The bathrooms in the dorms we have now are very unsanitary and disgusting too. I think bathrooms should be in all the rooms, just for convenience. All of the doors in our rooms have key locks and they do not lock behind you. Some people forget to lock the door and that often leads to serious situations and people getting things stolen from them. Closet space is very limited in the dorms now also. Me being a girl, I have hardly any room for all my clothes. Outlets in the dorms are sparse, and having too many surge protectors is outlawed, so not many things can stay plugged in on an everyday basis. Dorms just aren't very ideal and definitely not somewhere college students want to live.

For some people living in dorms isn't that bad but to others it's terrible. A lot of that decision is based on their roommates. Roommate selection is a rough process for some people. For people like me, it was easy. People always say you shouldn't room with you best friend from high school, but in the long run that could save you some hastle with roommate problems. The process of selecting a roommate is not very efficient. The school sends all students, whom do not have roommates selected already, a questionnaire that has basic questions on it to match personalities; for example: Are you a morning or a night person? Or, what kind of music do you like? These questions do not efficiently match personalities which often causes problems between roommates. The way roommates are selected needs to be changed.

A big problem with dorms as they are is people stealing things. The doors on the dorm rooms now have key locks. Key locks cause a lot of issues in this type of environment, on account most college students are some what irresponsible. Keys are very easy to lose and because the rooms don't lock automatically when the doors are closed, if you don't have a key your room is open to everyone. Things get stolen from people rooms all the time. I think the dorms need key-card doors. Doors should lock automatically when closed. To open the doors I think that a key-card like in a hotel should be used. All student ID cards should be programmed for each student's dorm room door and that would be inserted to open the door. This would help decrease the number of break-ins and also be more convenient because on this campus,