Living in a dorm room has its advantages and disadvantages just like everything else in life. This is now third year that I’m living in a dorm room and I must say that I learnt quite a few things about others but most importantly about myself. If you lived, live or will live in a dorm room I hope that your experience was, is and will be amazing. I definitely had more good than bad experiences and I must say that I really like it. I wanted to share with you just 3 lessons that I’ve learnt while living in a dorm room.
LESS IS MORE
Most dorm rooms aren’t very spacious and the storage space is pretty small. You basically have enough room to storage the most important things you will need. You also need to have in mind that you’re sharing that space with someone else and bringing too much stuff will just clutter your anyway small room. This is where you need to be smart and pack only things that you for sure now that you need and that you will actually use. Taking unnecessary things will just take away a precious space and your room will always look a mess. It definitely took me some time to figure out what I really need and what I think I need.
Making a list is definitely useful and I recommend it. There are also great printable sheets that you can easily print and use as a help. I think that it’s the best if you first use just the most necessary thing and they you can easily eventually bring more things. You also need to think that having less stuff will make moving out way easier. The first year I moved in a dorm room I took way to much meaningful things that I haven’t used once. This was a great lesson for me as in the second year I got much better with packing and space organization.
YOU DON’T NEED TO GET FRIENDLY WITH EVERYBODY
It’s easy to think that just because you live in a dorm with a lot of girls and you are sharing some rooms together, that you immediately need to be friends with all of them. I must admit that I had some idealized idea about dorms mainly because of all those university sorority movies. I live in an all girl dorm room and there is about 44 girls in total. I live on a second floor and there is 22 of us there. I don’t know how does dorms in other countries work but in Croatia there are girls that are from all over the country and they go to different universities.
The thing is that most of the time we all have different schedule so it’s hard to actually talk and bond. As there are two girls in a room we usually just hang out with our roommates and that’s it. Especially during the finals when everybody is under stress and you honestly don’t even want to be around anyone. I realized that we are all here because of university and that is our main priority. Making friends is great and I encourage everybody to do it but it’s not something you need to force yourself to do. I’m sure that you’ll meet some great people from your dorm room eventually so don’t feel sad if it’s been some time and you haven’t connected with anyone.
IF SOMETHING IS BOTHERING YOU SPEAK UP
Although this one goes for every aspect of your life I experienced it while living in a dorm room as well. Like it or not so many girls at one place can sometimes get pretty noisy. As there is no curfew in dorms sometimes people don’t respect others and act as they are living alone. It’s easy to just bear it and stay quite when you’re boiling inside as you don’t want to make a scene or come across as “party breaker”. Well let me tell you something, you need to speak up when something is bothering you. There is of course the right and the wrong way of doing it. Asking politely is definitely a best way to do it. I had such a situation last year where a girl next door was loudly playing music around 1AM in the middle of the week.
Our dorm room walls are thin as it is so you can almost hear everything so you can imagine how loud it gets at night when everything else is quite. To make the situation worse my roommate aka my sister was sick and she couldn’t fall asleep. I also couldn’t fall asleep and I had classes next day early in the morning. After negotiating should I or shouldn’t speak up I decided that I should. I politely knocked on her door and asked her if she could turn down the volume. She was cleaning her room and didn’t notice that it was loud and apologized for it. You see, if I decided to stay quite I would spend I don’t know how long trying to fall asleep.
Do you live in a dorm or have you ever lived in one?
What are your experiences?
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