In my opinion, dorming is one of the staples of the college experience. It is probably your first time living away from your parents, and also your first time living in a building with 50+ other people. By this time of year, most people can't wait to ditch the communal bathrooms to move into their sophomore year apartment where they actually get their own bedroom and a kitchen that isn't ravaged by fellow hall mates. My time has almost come to move out, and I can't help but get a little emotional, reflecting on the past year of my life that has been spent living in my tiny dorm. Dorming has helped you grow in more ways than you might realize upon first inspection. Here are some valuable life lessons dorming has taught you.
1. How to share...almost everything.
Bathrooms, bedrooms, food, clothes. You never knew you were such a giver until college - or until you didn't have the choice.
Growing up, I was always spoiled with my own room. All of a sudden, I had to pack my entire life into a 10 X 10 foot shared room. A tiny, shared room almost automatically equals no real space to yourself, except maybe your bed. My room was so small my roommate and I bumped into each other all the time; we couldn't even open our closets at the same time. We struggled in the beginning of the year, but we grew into it.
If you and your roommate get along, they'll be like the sibling you never knew you wanted. They'll take your food and borrow your clothes, and with all that patience dorming has fostered in you; you'll be okay with it. Sharing might even be fun at some point.
Last but not least, who knew you would have to ever wait in line to brush your teeth? It's a tooth brushin' party in the communal bathrooms!
2. How to pack lightly.
Unfortunately, with a small dorm, comes small closets and a great lack of storage space. "How am I supposed to fit my entire life in here?", I asked. Surprise! You don't. Your closet space from home has probably decreased by at least half, and you'll have to pick your favorites to bring and leave those behind that just don't make the cut. My shoe game is now weak, as I learned I can't bring three types of every shoe style to my dorm.
3. How to deal with dirty-ness.
Your bathroom at home looks like a shining epitome of cleanliness in comparison to the dorm bathrooms.
Coming to college, I was a complete germaphobe. The idea of communal bathrooms terrified me, but I really had no other option than to face the challenge. As the year progressed, I think I improved greatly. (I still don't understand people who don't wear shower shoes though). Communal bathrooms don’t scare me too much anymore, as they have just become routine. I am definitely much less of a "princess" about clean bathrooms now than I was before.
4. How to clean.
The bathroom is a whole different beast, and now one expects you to clean the communal bathrooms, but your own bedroom is all on you.
I guess you just don't realize how messy you can be when you don't have your mom cleaning up after you, or at least yelling at you to clean it. In your dorm, it’s all up to you to do the dirty work, which often results in most boys rooms smelling like moldy ramen noodles.
If you don't clean, no one else is going to, so you better whip out that vacuum and start dusting before you're buried in your own filth.
5. How much laundry sucks.
Even if you did your own laundry in high school, laundry in dorms can be a nightmare. People often seem to forget they were in the middle of washing their clothes and abandon them in the dryer for hours on end. This results in your dorm Facebook page being 90% filled with passive aggressive posts similar to, “Whoever you are, get your clothes out of the dryer".
Yet again, your dorm is teaching you patience!
6. How to sleep through noise.
Whether it’s your roommate getting back from a late night out or the people upstairs slamming their drawers nonstop, you learn to sleep through it, or at least get better at it. It seems my hall mates upstairs often find themselves in the exercise mood and do jumping jacks at 2 am, or that's at least what it sounds like. If you don't get better at sleeping through noise, at least you learn the importance of ear plugs.
7. How much your parents did for you.
Whether it was your laundry, making you food, or making sure you got to class on time with your life together, you definitely notice their absence when you live without them. This becomes vividly clear for me whenever I encounter a spider and my dad isn't there to kill it for me.
8. That there's no place like home.
In high school, some of us hated being home. We hated being under the ever watchful eyes of our parents and having a curfew. Once you come to your dirty dorm with bathrooms that are only cleaned once a week and meals that might give you food poisoning, you forget this past hatred and love the idea of going home. We all swore we wouldn’t want to go home, but we find ourselves jealous of everyone who has the opportunity to go home to their own shower and a home cooked meal. Whether you like it or not, we all catch a little homesickness once in a while, and find ourselves appreciating our hometown that we couldn't wait to leave.
9. How to find yourself.
You might be surprised with the choices you make without your parents telling you what to do. Maybe you’ll completely embrace the freedom of being a college freshman, or maybe you’ll realize that maybe going out every weekday isn’t your cup of tea. Whether you spend your Friday nights watching Netflix in your bed, or stumbling back into your dorm slightly intoxicated, you get to call all the shots in your life now. You’re responsible for how clean your room is, whether your laundry is done and whether you show up to class. While your parents may nag you over the phone about these issues, it’s just not the same. While our freshman selves might often contemplate how lost we feel while laying in our dorm rooms every night, I believe it is where we truly are found.
Don't forget what your dorm taught you next year when you're living the fancy life in your apartment!
