Dorming – It’s About More Than Your Roommate

When you think about dorming, you probably think about living with a roommate. It’s understandable – one of the two things that come to anyone’s mind about living in a dorm room is a roommate and that you don’t have much room for your dorm necessities. You don’t really think about the area outside of your college dorm room. When you think about it, you live with one or two dorm roommates that you have to be considerate of but then you have everyone else on your college dorm floor and in your residence hall to be considerate of.

Loud Music – You may have had your music really loud when you were at home and your parents wouldn’t say anything. However, when you’re in college, there are a lot more people around you who have different schedules than you do. The college student in the room right next to yours may have a full schedule and are trying to study during the only free time they have. If you can hear your music outside of your dorm room with your dorm door closed, then your music is too loud. Plus if your music is too loud even if it isn’t quiet hours, your RA will be knocking on your door for you to turn down your music. Avoid getting on the bad side of the RA and be considerate in regards to your music from the start.

Laundry – There are a lot of college students living in the same residence hall. For all of those college students, there are surprisingly few washers and dryers in the dorm laundry room. When you do get the chance to wash and dry your clothes, be considerate of others in the residence hall and remove your clothes promptly. You don’t want to leave your clothes sitting in the washer or dryer for a long time after they are done. If you do happen to do that, you’re going to be preventing someone else from washing or drying their laundry or you could even end up with someone else taking your laundry out and placing either gently or not so gently on a table or floor nearby.

Common Rooms – Your residence hall may have a common room on each floor that you can watch TV, hang out with friends, and possibly even cook. These common rooms are great but you want to be considerate of others and not take over the common room too much. You don’t want to spend all day watching TV in the common room and prevent other college students from using it. You also don’t want to leave a mess in the kitchen area or anywhere in the common room. A good rule of thumb is to leave it looking like you were never there.