If housing selection seems impossible, take a glimpse at how it was handled ten years ago. Tom Roche comments on the Room Draw headache in an April 1993 Dickinsonian issue.

There will be many aspects of Dickinson College that I will miss next year. I think what I will miss the most is the yearly process of choosing a place to live…NOT!

Over the past four years I have lived in a number of different places. Well, to be exact, four.
I’ve gone through the trials and tribulations of the housing process and it is truly not a pretty picture. I know that many of you who went through off-campus application, as well as those that are soon to be put through Room Draw, are familiar with what I am talking about.

Picking a room is actually a piece of cake for many students. But for those of us who are not R.A.s, studying abroad, S.D.L.C-bound, or rising freshmen, choosing shelter becomes something only a step easier than picking a U.S. Attorney General.

I’ve done some scientific polling and my data supports the fact that 100% of those students who do not want to live on-campus would prefer to live off-campus. Yet only about 60% of these people will be allowed to find their own place to live for next year.

Talk to students at other institutions about having to apply for permission to live off-campus and they will look at you as if you had three heads. The main reason for the not allowing everyone to go off-campus is financially based. The college loses money for every student who does not live in residential housing. Why not allow everyone off and just lower tuition (why, it’s just crazy enough to work!)?

The College’s bottom line is that off-campus housing is a privilege, not a right. We really have nothing to complain about; every one of us signed that form as incoming freshmen stating that the College would be our babysitter for four years. We should be thankful we get to stay up as late as we want.

So you’ve been denied off-campus housing. What’s next? Back in my day, there was something called block-housing, the path which I chose for my junior year. However, some students decided to take advantage of living together in groups, and because of their improper behavior, the College has decided to discontinue block-housing as an option. This kind of philosophy takes me back to my days as an elementary school student, when a teacher would make the whole class put their heads down on the desk and remain silent just because two or three kids were acting up.

Now what? Ahh, Room Draw. I heard it’s going to be done by computer this year; at least that should rid the process of any bugs. So you get a number, what should you do then? You could stay home and bang your head against the wall or you could go to the social hall for an evening of laughs (both equally effective).

About three quarters of the campus are familiar with what happens on this night- all the good stuff gets taken first: off-campus “campus housing,” townhouses and suites. (Townhouses and suites are not a problem, but block-housing is. Go figure.)

After that there are quads in Malcolm or Witwer, which despite being somewhat small, are not that bad. There’s Drayer if you’re into noise or being female. And yes, the building that causes Frank Lloyd Wright to roll over in his grave, Kinser-Woodward Hall (ATS doesn’t count here). There’s a round common room with a TV that’s perfectly suited for…uhh…sitting in a round room and watching TV.

The singles are so small that it is advised that residents remove doorknobs before bending over. And I often hear residents praising the Utopian studying environment KW offers with its cozy, morge-like atmosphere.

I’d like to say that I myself am a survivor of KW. I made it through because I had a double (which are spacious), and because I was endlessly entertained by the adventures of my floormate, Woogums.

One important item freshmen should know going into Room Draw is that not everyone walks away that night with a bed for the fall.

However, there is no reason whatsoever to fear the Waiting List. When I think about it, it annoys me that with my senior Room Draw number the best I could get was a double in the Quads or Adams, when subsequently rising underclassmen who were wait-listed are handed comfortable off-campus “campus” apartments.

Is it me, or is this totally ridiculous? There’s no justification for this at all. My advice is that everyone not satisfied with the room selection available should volunteer to be put on the Waiting List. In my experience, you’re sure to end up with better housing.