When you first come to college, one of the biggest adjustments is living in a dorm room. You might get your first roommate, share a bathroom with people you aren’t related to, and learn how to live on your own. It also is a place where you can decorate and live however you want. As a result, every dorm room is unique and reflects different things about who someone is and how he or she lives.

So here’s what I did. I took pictures of my friend’s dorm rooms and asked them why they chose to decorate their rooms like they did. Below are pictures of real dorm rooms and the inner thoughts behind their decorations

Room #1

The occupant of this room says he is "organized but not really. I know where everything is, but it's not in a place where anyone else would know where it would be." When I asked about his posters he said he played a lot of video games when he had time (but doesn’t anymore), he's had the Nemo poster since the movie came out in 2003, he really likes mushrooms (hence the mushroom poster), and he took the photo of the spider and bee himself! Also he has a stuffed octopus named Stufty, which was too cute not to include.

Room #2

This room reflects all the different elements of the resident’s personality. There are hints of travel, pictures of friends, “weird vintage-y things” (“Can that be an element of someone’s personality?”) and many knick-knacks. She has many books of poetry and quotes on the wall, (“It’s not anything deep, it’s just a true fact”), a succulent, and earplugs “because this entire dorm is really loud”.

Room #3

Really this isn’t a third room but the other side of room #2. The two tenants started talking about each other’s decorations and this dialogue proceeded:

“Is your favorite color purple?”

“No.”

“Why do you have so much purple on your side?”

“It was either this or blue and I like purple better.”

“So what’s your favorite color?”

“Yellow.”

“There are no yellow things in this room!”

“Well I don’t like yellow things.”

In addition to a lot of purple, she has a wall of photos with three photos of her and her grandparents at the top! Also, on her dresser she has many things, including a published book that she wrote herself (see the blue book on the corner of her dresser).

Room #4

The occupant of this room considers her room to be very political with an Obama poster, a Bernie poster, an environmental poster, a tin with “votes for women” written on it, a free speech button and an anti-Trump button. She also wants to go on record as being “Unashamed of her cat paraphernalia.” She is “a member of the movement to end the cat lady stigma”. With a cat mug, cat coasters, a framed cat picture, a cat tea diffuser, a world map made up of cats, and kitty gloves, she is “proud of her love for cats. It should not have a negative connotation”.

For her and her roommate, ambiance is very important. They avoid using the overhead lights and instead use twinkly lights and lamps. Also, they regularly have people over to drink tea, and on special occasions have a poetry and tea night, where people can read their favorite poems and be in the presence of other tea drinkers. The pile of different tea and tea paraphernalia on her dresser has become affectionately known as the “Tower of Tea”.

This last photo is actually of her roommate’s board. When the roommate first put the board up it was a bonding moment for the roommates because she felt that her roommate’s “spirit was so much like her own and she saw her spirit in her roommate” through her decorations. It “encapsulated both of them in a board”.

So there it is. Four different dorm rooms, each with their own interesting decorations and one-of-a-kind occupants.