Freshman year of college presents students with many changes, and one of the biggest adjustments comes with living in a dorm room. While some students are happy with their housing, others feel they came to MSU with too high of expectations.
“I was expecting it to be like a lot better than it is now,” English freshman Maija Itenberg said.
Other than adjusting to living with a roommate and dealing with noisy neighbors, Itenberg said one of her biggest issues in Holden Hall has been the dorm's laundry room. From having to fish her socks out of a flooded washer to holes burnt through her clothes in the dryer, Itenberg said she was not expecting a fight with the laundry machines.
“Where's the tuition that I'm paying going towards, if not for the laundry machines that I have to use?" Itenberg said. "They've literally burned my underwear.”
Residence Education and Housing Services Associate Director for Communications Bethany Balks commented on the recent increase of laundry fires.
"We have seen, in the last year, a few more issues than in my six years here," Balks said. "I will say, most have been tied to some learning curve of using the machines."
English education freshman Vera Bouton said she’s heard Mayo Hall's laundry room horror stories with pants thrown in the trash and clothes put on the floor. She now prefers to bring her laundry back home.
“If I were doing laundry here again, I would stay in that laundry room,” Bouton said. “I would stand right outside the door because they will move your stuff the minute your stuff gets done.”
Balks said this type of behavior goes against MSU community guidelines and that Residence Education and Housing Services, or REHS, is working on email and social media communication to enforce those courtesy protocols, in addition to the signage already displayed in laundry rooms.
Bouton said she came to school excited to decorate her dorm like how she saw online and in the media, but in reality, she didn’t have time to go all-out. She also said she expected her dorm to be more social than it is.
“It isn’t exactly what I expected, but it definitely still is a great experience,” Bouton said.
Journalism freshman Ashley Morgan lives in Yakeley Hall and said the noise level has been an issue.
“Sometimes it's 2 a.m. and people are screaming,” Morgan said. “You know you live in a communal space, right?”
Balks said it's best for students to address noise issues directly if possible and to seek out a resident assistant, or RA, if the problem persists. She added that, as per the housing handbook, students have a right to "study and sleep without interference."
"People should be able to be in their space and they shouldn’t have to worry about noise, or knocking on doors, or distractions that take away from peoples’ ability to live and learn because that is why people are here on campus," Balks said.
Other than the lack of privacy that comes with sharing a room, Morgan doesn’t feel like dorm living is as bad as others say.
“I think people make out dorm living to be really terrible, and I just think people are being a little dramatic,” Morgan said. “I don't think it's that bad.”
Business freshman Trisha Mallempudi said the bathroom wall's tiles fell off in the middle of the night in her suite-style dorm room in McDonel Hall.
"I heard a crash," Mallempudi said. "We went and looked, and the wall just like fell off."
That wasn’t the only maintenance issue she dealt with, though. Mallempudi's dorm also flooded the first few weeks of the semester, and she was instructed by her RA to put towels down.
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Balks said the key to resolving issues like this is quick communication.
“We don’t want students to have a poor experience," Balks said. "We want them to communicate with us as quickly as possible if they're seeing anything. Having 10,000 residence hall rooms, that does make it where we don’t have eyes on everything, but certainly we do want to support things and move them along.”
Balks added that REHS values student feedback when it comes to reoccurring maintenance issues in the dorms and takes that into account when renewing contracts with vendors. She also said that if a student feels like their problems haven't been properly addressed, they should contact their Neighborhood Facilities Manager to escalate those concerns.
Business freshman Brayden Demay said he had high expectations for his dorm after moving his sister into Brody Neighborhood — the newest dorms on campus. However, after his initial shock of his Phillips Hall room's small size, he’s learned to appreciate its location and dining hall.
“I kind of fell in love with my dorm,” Demay said. “As cliché as it sounds, I really love this place. So, I'm kind of just happy the way it all worked out.”
