Students Turn their Dorms into a Second Home
by: Katie Schweigardt
Leaving for college is the first time most young adults are on their own without guidance or help from their parents. A big change for many of these students is dorm life. This is usually the first time they have to share a room, bathroom and other communal spaces. First-time experiences usually lead to conflicts and growing pains.
“The most difficult part is making sure that people uphold the community standard while keeping community spaces clean and escort policies,” resident assistant (RA) for Sienna Secondo Floor 3 Shaiane Overall said.
It’s not only upholding community standards but also communicating, understanding and respecting someone they’ve never met, Overall said.
“Communicating where you’re coming and going and just being mindful of the other person if they’re doing homework or taking a nap and you’re not,” junior nursing major Ginger Atzinger said.
Being mindful of roommates and communicating are great but that may not be the root of the problem for some issues that arise. The issue itself is room space. Last year, Bellarmine had an overcapacity issue, which led to a lot of doubles becoming three students to a room and students having less overall space.
“I’m not sure we're at an overcapacity this year. I know we were last year, and the issue was we had to make a lot of triples, which means taking a room that is typically a double, only two people, and shoving three to four people in there and just making the spaces really crammed and not really a decent living space for any party,” Overall said.
Overcapacity is not the only issue RAs have to deal with. Over the past couple of years, having a companion pet in the dorm has become popular.
“People wanting companion pets. That’s been a big thing this year and people wanting their cats or dogs. That’s a kind of thing that has to be accommodated for. You can’t just have them,” Oversall said.
Companion pets are great for those who need and have them properly registered through the Accommodation Resource Center (ARC). The problem is that some students just bring their pets on campus without registering them. This leads to consequences of having the animal removed immediately and other disciplinary action taken.
“Everybody is aware when they come into the dorms that you can’t just have an animal there,” Overall said.
Even with the issues of overcapacity and companion animals, dorm life still allows for friendships to be made.
“We respect each other's boundaries, but we are both really chill people so we haven’t had any issues really because we communicate so well. It’s like sharing a room with my sister that’s my best friend," freshmen exercise science major Annie Sewell said.
Close relationships and friendships come from having to live in such small spaces with others.
“So celebrating their birthdays, and giving them advice and allowing them to know that I’m here for them as a friend and whatever else that they need,” Overall said.
Celebrating each other and building friendships helps to create a community that students might never have put themselves into if it was not for the dorms.
“The community. I have made lots of new friends here in the dorms. People that I’m forced to hang out with, so now we’re really good friends, and I don’t know if I would have been really good friends with them unless they lived in my dorm,” Sewell said.
Living on campus is not only great because of friendships but it’s also easier to get to class.
“I like not having to commute from home. I can just walk up the hill to class or if I have friends on campus we meet up on campus and it’s just super close,” Atzinger said.
Living on campus is nice for its closeness to class but also for allowing students to take responsibility for their lives.
“You are indeed on your own. Your parents aren’t telling you to empty out the trash when it starts over filling or clean your dishes…or like laundry. No one is telling you to do it. You just kind of have to do it and will you time manage well enough to do the stuff that will make your life better,” Sewell said.
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