Discovering the Right College Dorm

Living on your own is a college student’s dream; no more curfews and parents telling you what to do.

While dorm life plays a huge part in the college experience, it also can be a scary thought. Therefore, it is important to take into consideration exactly what kind of dorm will fit your needs.

As a student, you want to make sure that your lifestyle will fit perfectly with the kind of dorms available on the campus. Schools today try to accommodate for many diverse ways of living.

Each dorm on your campus will have something that stands out from the others. Just make sure to read up on each and every dorm so you can have a dorm that fits your needs.

Themed Living

Themed living may be available to students who know exactly what they want to do with their lives.

This kind of experience consists of one floor or an entire dorm that caters to one specific major. This means that if you are a declared theater major then there could be an entire dorm or floor that is just for people within that major.

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This type of living can be an advantage to freshmen because they can meet people who have the same interests as them.

However, a disadvantage to living like this is there will be a lack of diversity and later on in your education classes and internships will become competitive among the people in your dorm.

Quiet Floor

Quiet floors are floors that have scheduled times of the day that are reserved for studying. This means the entire floor must be quiet during these designated hours or people may be written up by the resident assistant.

It is nice to know that every day you will have a certain block of time to study.

However, if that time is during your classes or when you are working, then the floor could be rowdy when you find your own time to study.

Substance-Free

Substance-free dorms are living situations that abstain from alcohol and drugs. This means even if you are twenty-one and living in that type of dorm, then alcohol is still not allowed into the building.

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These dorms are the place to live if a student is not into the party scene and looking to concentrate on school.

If students sneak in alcohol or drugs into a dorm like this, then they could get written up by the residential staff and ticketed for illegal substances or underage drinking.

Alternative Housing

Alternative housing is offered at some schools because they do not have enough dorms for the amount of students they admit.

The alternative housing includes religious dorms associated with the school and apartment-style living.

Religious dorms are just regular dorms but they also offer a place for students to be able to freely express their religious views within a chapel or with the religious leaders in association with the dorm.

Apartment-style living can come in two ways: some students can be exempted from living in the dorms and can choose to live in an apartment and some schools also can offer apartments on campus that are associated with the school.

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Single-sex

Single-sex dorms are also available at some campuses. This makes it easier for students that are still uncomfortable with the idea of living with strangers who are of the opposite sex.

If single sex dorms are not available at the school of your choice, most schools offer single-sex floors so the opposite sex will be living in your dorm, just not on your floor.

This will make for a more comfortable situation for some students.