Another year at Dickinson has almost passed. The squirrels are frolicking through the academic quad, the rain is making everyone wonder if it is actually almost May, the imminent approach of finals confirms that it is in fact almost May, and once again the most popular question of the past week has been “what’d you get for housing?”

As a rising senior, housing is especially important to me as well as my fellow rising seniors. This coming school year will be our last at Dickinson, and by god we want to make it a year to remember. However for some of us, that year will include living in a dorm. As a senior. Not exactly what we had in mind.

The housing selection process is quite stressful, but this stress is exponentially greater when there is a chance as a senior your “sweet apartment” will in fact be a double in the basement of an underclass dorm. Seniors should not be left with only dorm housing options.

There’s several ways this problem can be amended.

1. Expand the number of students who are allowed to take off campus housing

2.  Expand the number of college owned apartments, small houses, and town houses.

3. Prohibit underclassmen from living in non-dorm housing.

Now I am not particularly fond of option three, and I doubt many other students would be either, so that is not a particularly appealing option. Option two would involve a long drawn out process of finding available houses, making any repairs or modifications to fit standards for college owned housing, and would involve Dickinson buying the properties. This leaves us with the first option, in my mind the easiest and most beneficial option for both students and the administration. For one thing, expanding the number of students selected for off campus housing would help integrate the college with the town of Carlisle better. Right now there is a very defined line between Dickinson and Carlisle. It would be more beneficial for both entities if they were more intertwined. With more students living off campus there would be more business for many of the restaurants and bars and the possibility of new businesses coming in and helping to liven up Carlisle.

Because let’s face it, the way things are right now it can be hard to find a restaurant open after 9, even on the weekends. This relates to admissions as well, if Carlisle was seen as more of a college town, I am sure it would help boost the admissions rates, especially for those who loved Dickinson but were not sold on Carlisle.

The way I see it, expanding the number of students allowed to take off campus housing is a win-win situation for everyone involved.