What it Looks Like Inside a Dorm Room, Suite, and Other Campus Living Options
Students in America live in all types of arrangements - on campus and off campus, dorm rooms and apartments, alone and with roommates. Earlier this year Annisa discussed how she chose between all the possibilities, but which one would you choose? Here are a look at all the different types of housing our bloggers live in, and what each one is like.
Sunny - Sharing a house with friends
I am living off campus (we call it "off grounds" at UVa because we use "grounds" instead of "campus"...). We five girls rent this house. This is a funny "house picture" taken outside of my house with my housemates a while ago. Virginia has had weird weather, and spring/summer just finally arrived.
Tom - On campus, but apartment-style
I live in 'Leonardtown' which is like a little community of around ten separate blocks of individual self-contained apartments. We live on campus so it is university housing, which I applied for through their online application form. I applied when I was still in England, and was placed with 3 other Americans. Our apartment has two bedrooms, with two of us in each. It is my first time sharing a room, which was quite daunting at first but myself and my roommate are good friends now!
It's not the most attractive spot so here's another picture of the view if you walk about 1 minute away from my apartment. This is the back of Fraternity Row.
Phillip - The traditional dorm experience
That is my bed with the Zimbabwean flag hanging on the wall. Zimbabwe recently celebrated 33 years of independence so I just decided to put the flag out for the day. I also have postcards I have amassed from my travels on the wall.
That is a photo of our closet, in the back room. We share it among the the four of us. I live in quad with three other roommates.
That is a photo of our door. Our JA, an upperclassman who lives with incoming students, made the wooden labels for our door.
That is a photo of my roommate's desk. He studies at his desk most of the time.
Hein - An apartment in the city
I am most fortunate to live in a trendy neighborhood at a very cheap rate where everything is accessible within walking distance. I got this apartment through an aunt of mine, who used to live here and she referred me to the landlord before I moved to D.C. for school. I just couldn't be luckier.
This is our dormitory, Niskanen Hall, and here’s the hallway that leads to my room. It has only two floors and girls and boys live in this same building.
Ok, here are my roommates. They are all Americans, but all of them have mixed blood: Alyssa’s grandparents come from Poland, Sam’s parents are half-Swedish, while Mallory is Polish, German and Dutch.
When you come in, the first room you see is the living room. It is huge! I never imagined a dorm room could have such a big living room! The sofas, the air-conditioner and the heating system come with the room, but Mallory and Alyssa brought the TV set, the CD player and the bookshelf.
Our dorm room also has a kitchen. We have several dining centers on campus and we can go there whenever we want. Yet Alyssa and Mallory still prefer to cook on their own because it saves time. You can see that our kitchen is a typical American kitchen. The machine for making coffee has filter paper inside – my Serbian friend said that Serbians don’t use filter paper, but Americans in North Dakota do. And of course, there is leftover pizza on the counter.
