Living in a dorm can be a surreal and wild experience. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what to expect because I don’t think it is possible to objectively depict what it will be like because each dorm will have their own version of wild.
Having said that, here is what life in a dorm can really like.
Once you become accustomed to living in a dorm, you’ll stop questioning things. For example, you’ll probably notice someone trying to throw food bags out of their first-floor window whilst another person stands directly underneath attempting to catch them, but you won’t question it.
Then by the end of the year, someone could literally walk past you in a bright pink rabbit onesie or wander around your campus dressed as Shrek carrying a cardboard cut-out of donkey nowhere near Halloween and you probably won’t even bat an eyelid.
Although, the only thing you will start to question is when you can’t smell weed.
Having a traffic cone and/or shopping trolley in your dorm is just part of life in a dorm.
In my third year, we had a traffic cone in our kitchen, and it had become such an integral part of our home. Every time we had to decorate our dorm for a birthday, we would cover the cone in bright pink wrapping paper (with flamingos on it) because none of us had the heart to put it back outside.
Nobody knows what they are doing, everybody is constantly sick, and everyone wants their Mum.
Dorm sleepovers really are the best, especially because all of your friends live across the hall/upstairs or in the opposite building. They will rock up to your dorm in their nightgown and curlers in their hair because you live like 5 steps away from them and also nobody really cares.
Dorm sleepovers are particularly great because one night you could be getting ready to go out, pre-drinking and trying to take the perfect selfies and group pictures.
Then the next night all of your friends are in your room dancing to the High School Musical soundtrack with face masks on because, at university, there really isn’t an in-between.
I mean 80% of the learning opportunities will be useless but occasionally your housemates will give you little pearls of wisdom. For example, my housemate taught me how to make Nachos and I recreated the dish at a family get together and three people asked me for the recipe. I like the fact that it’s slowly, accidentally, but surely being passed on.
You’ll probably make friends for life in dorms.
They will look out for you by making sure you’re eating, wait up for you when you’ve gone out, subtly sit in the same café as you when you’re on a date just to make sure the guy isn’t a murderer and vice versa.
If you can spend 48 hours with your roommate and not get even the slightest bit irritated, you’re probably going to be life-long friends.
Being a student and living your life in a dorm can often lead to accumulating so much alcohol that it might seem like you’re trying to start an off-licence. Then instead of recycling empty bottles, we all just put them on the window sill. Is it for decoration? Is it a rite of passage? Or is it for the culture? Who knows?
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