Setting up your space

By Brielle Aguayo •

Residential living can be a transitional period for incoming students, as many will be living on their own for the first time.
To help settle students’ worries and stress about living away from home, there are a few things they can do to personalize their dorms and make them feel unique.

When laying out the space of the dorm, there are key essentials and sections for different needs. Different areas consist of the bed, desk, closet and storage sections of the residential room.

The most common residential halls that freshmen live in are the Leo Goodwin Hall and The Commons, where there are different layouts. In Goodwin, there are rooms with either two or three beds known as doubles or triples. In The Commons, there are suites with either single or double bedrooms. The different layouts may impact space, but students are still able to customize their new rooms.

In The Commons, students can request to raise their bed for maximum storage space. By raising the bed, the space underneath can act as another closet section. While the actual built-in closet holds clothes that need hanging, underneath the bed students can put a shoe rack to hold more shoes. Also, the shelf in the built-in closet above can hold items like garbage bags, laundry detergent and a bin to hold linens.

Leo Goodwin has a different format for space, making it a more stereotypical dorm setup. Similar to The Commons, students can raise their bed high to save space. If the bed is raised high enough, it can act as a make-shift bunk bed. Underneath, more furniture can fit, like a small dresser with a television on it and two chairs.

This concept increases space and lets students bond with their roommates on the other side of the dorm.
In both freshman residential halls there is no kitchen space, yet there is a shared counter space that can act as a small kitchen.

In both spaces there are useful things you can put there such as microwaves, coffee makers and toaster ovens, which are all allowed in those specified spaces. Also, coordinating with your roommates is useful to know who is going to purchase the shared items. It is also important to have certain rules and understandings of who will replenish what items and what exactly you share as roommates in a shared space.

The space you have is what you make it. For college students, it is a weird and unfamiliar place at first when moving into residential spaces. However, with a set plan of organization and newfound independence anything is possible.