GC offers first-year students the opportunity to live on campus in one of their residence halls. Freshmans can rank their desired residence hall from GC’s 7 offered, as well as their roommates and suitemates. With such an unprecedented year of beginnings ahead of these freshmen, unprecedented experiences warrant as well. 

This week I asked a slew of students ranging from first years to fourth year to share their stories and experiences while living in the dorms.

Foundation Hall: Abbi Clark, freshman nursing major, provided an experience she was met with this year in the dorms. 

“Foundation hall was receiving maintenance to help fix some issues occurring with the ac units while my roommate and I were in class. I live on the fourth floor of Foundation.While the maintenance men were up there, they hit the water line right above our dorm. I received a call from my CA while I was in my literature class stating that my dorm was completely flooded. I ran back to our room and there were at least 15 Maintenance men standing in feet of water. Our beds, computers, clothes, food, rug and the wallpaper my dad hung were all floating and ruined at our feet. Since our dorm was completely unlivable at that point, they moved us into temporary dorm rooms while they gut and fix our ruined dorm room. The rooms we are currently in are like living in jail cells because they are singles, but we are hoping it will all be fixed soon. Fingers crossed.”

Wells Hall: Fourth-year middle-grades cohort member, Claire Garwes, senior middle grades education major, provided an experience she was met with freshman year in the dorms. 

“I remember this really awful smell that would not go away my freshman year. I looked everywhere around the room only to determine that the smell had to be coming from my roommate’s side of the room. I persistently asked her what the smell was, but she continued to dismiss the comment, claiming she did not smell anything. After weeks of the pungent smell, I decided to take matters into my own hands. It was at this point that I found a moldy pumpkin in the corner of the room that my roommate forgot about. It was disgusting and to this day I will not buy real pumpkins for fear that I’ll experience that horrible smell again.”

Parkhurst Hall: Two anonymous GC seniors provided different animal experiences within the dorms.

Senior one: “So, freshman year, I came to GC without any of my high school friends and decided to take random roommates. I thought it would be fun and I knew I was going to be busy anyways so it would not be super awkward.One day, my roommate decided to drive to Florida and buy 2 frogs from a random ad she saw on Facebook. Without telling any of us, she brought them home and kept them under her bed in a cage for the rest of the school year. I mean, you do you, but I remember feeling like that was information that should have been shared with myself and my other roommates. Not to mention how dangerous and odd it was to meet a random person to buy frogs from. Had she not heard of PetSmart?”

Senior two: “My roommate and I found stray kittens running around campus one day and decided to “save them.” Three days later, our room was covered in cat feces, and we unfortunately found out that these kittens were also infected with worms. We took them to an animal rescue shortly after this.”

Foundation Hall: My experience

I think that living in the dorms provided me with some of my favorite experiences that I keep with me even as a senior. While living close in proximity to 3 other people can be difficult, it was filled with so many memories. Freshman year, my roommates and I decided to go downtown after a long week of classes. When we got back to our hallway, we found all the furniture from the study rooms pushed out into the middle of the halls, décor ripped off our doors and honestly everything in complete shambles. Although there were already smeared avocado stains and broken exit signs adding some spice to our hall, I cannot help but think that was a little too much destruction.