How to Achieve Dorm Life Serenity

College is where we go to achieve higher learning whether it be Speech, Anthropology, Physics, or Eastern Civilization. We all go there to learn, but academics are not our only lessons to be had. We get a very real life lesson in social dynamics once we decide to live in a college dormitory. Being a former college graduate who spent all my university years living in a dorm I hope to pass down some helpful experience to anyone planning to live in a dorm. First of all, yes you will finally be free of your parents for the semester, you can't be grounded, you can stay up as late as you want and come and go as you please. Many first years take this new privilege and go completely nuts... It seems that the power is just too much for them and they explode into an utter mess not unlike the laundry that will no doubt pile up for a month before it is dealt with. Take a moment to consider for a moment, yes mom and dad won't be there to dictate you... and on the contrary they won't be there to protect and save you either least you annoy your fellow dorm peers into dispensing their own manner of revenge on you for not letting them sleep that night they have to wake up early for a 8:00 am exam.

The main thing you have to be aware of in order to enjoy a relatively peaceful and pleasant dorm life experience is that consideration for others goes a long way. You're not on your own yet, you have at least one roommate who unless you make proper arrangements will be someone you've never met before, you'll also have neighbors all around you, and you'll have some sort of order management led by an adult and several of your older peers. The best advice I can give anyone is to learn to be open-minded and take things as they come. Chances are you're roommate will be a stranger, but you might as well learn to like each other or at least tolerate each other after all he or she also carries a key to your room. Last thing you want is to start a confrontation that ends in your expensive laptop "accidentally" falling out the third story window. From day one, after you've moved your stuff in and gotten comfortable you should take the time to converse with your new roomie, ask them about their major or high school, break the ice and relax. Once you're acquainted you should discuss your habits, sleep habits, study habits, and free time habits; from there you should both write up a set of rules you can agree on and sign, that way if there are any problems in the future you've got something to go back on. An example of a good general contract is this:

Lights Off 9:00 pm - 9:00 am Sunday through Thursday, Friday - Saturday nights negotiable, Overnight guests need to inform roommate, Share Food (y/n), Music while studying (y/n), Limit of guests at one time (y/n... how many?) room temperature? Trash Duty?, etc... It's also good to post your class schedules somewhere so you can both refer to them.

Be mindful that half the room is yours and half the room is theirs. If you're a tidy person and they're not be prepared to be the one doing most of the cleaning. Most fights occur when one person's routine clashes with the others. If you come in smashed at 2:00 am on Sunday and wake up your roommate, there's gonna be a conflict. If you resent the fact that it seems like you're the only one emptying the trash can, either politely prompt them to do it once in a while or just do it and get it over with. Something that bothers you won't necessarily bother them, example being shoes in the room. You just have to learn to accept that they're going to do things their way and you are going to do things your way. We all have our pet peeves but in order to survive in a dorm you have to compromise. The only time I would say not to compromise is if your roommate's habits become hazardous in some way; for example, leaving food out overnight, not doing their laundry after a certain point, or bringing over people that make you feel uncomfortable.

If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, for goodness sake, inform your roommate if you want to have some intimate time alone with your lover. Plan it on a night your roommate's going out with friends or back home and keep it on your side of the room. No one wants to walk in on their roommate reenacting something off the discovery channel.

Be prepared to share a bathroom, and be mindful that it's not just your bathroom. I can't begin to tell how many horrific incidents have occurred where someone didn't clean up after themselves properly or how many walked in and out and never a sink faucet was heard. Wash your hands... let me repeat that, wash your hands... a college dorm by nature is a collection of germs from all over, if ever there was a time to take up a renewed vigor towards hygiene now would be it.

As I mentioned earlier, you get half the room, assuming of course that it's a two-person room, having said that I must stress the importance of not moving in everything you own or have ever touched. Bring your clothes, your computer, TV, Gaming Console, some dishes, some cleaning tools, a few nick knacks and be done with it. Do not bring every stuffed animal you own, a jumbo wide screen plasma TV, a library of every book you ever read, these things just aren't necessary not to mention it's quite cruel to pack so much that your family, friends, whoever helped you move in gets horrible back pains the next day. Plus everything you move in will also be moved out along with all the things you will undoubtedly collect over the semester. I don't care how thrifty you think you are, you would be surprised how much more you'll have after the semester and good luck ever fitting it back into your parents house...

Parking is also somewhat of a gamble. Some newer campuses have parking lots for their dorms and that makes life much easier. Other campuses built long before everyone owned a car will present a challenge to your vehicular mobility. Depending on the campus you may want to forfeit your vehicle and learn the bus routes, or make friends with the kid two doors down who owns the SUV.

Refrigerator space is also limited in most dorms and most colleges will offer meal plans so that a student basically buys the semester worth of meals in advance and then dines three times a day in the campus restaurants/ cafeterias. The pros to meal plans are that you are guaranteed food for every meal and never have to worry about grocery shopping unless you are just craving a frozen pizza and Oreos. The cons however are that unless you eat three meals a day everyday at the student union you will not be getting your full money's worth. Sometimes you can redeem credits at a campus store but what generally ends up happening with that is you'll see a lot of students buy $50 worth of 20 oz bottles of mountain dew and pop-tarts at the end of the semester when I bet anyone would rather have gotten their $50 back. Just be aware of these factors when deciding whether a meal plan is right for you.

Overall college dorm life is quite beneficial in many ways. It's safer than an apartment since it's run by people who are generally more concerned over student safety than rent money. Dorms are often cheaper than apartments and the lesson in social dynamics is very useful later on when you decide to move out or with friends for real. Also it's always handy to have students just down the hall that might know how long to warm up the ramen, what to set the laundry machine for, or what was found in the Svestari tomb. Dorm life is about learning just as much as going to college is, you learn how to live with other people not related to you, you learn about yourself, and you learn to take care of yourself.