Dear Jacob,
I know it’s a bit early to think about, but I was wondering if you have any advice on where to live next year.
Signed,
Stuck in Brokaw
Well, Brokaw, I don’t know if I’m the fifth-year you should be asking. In the five years I’ve been here, I’ve lived in two dorms and one house. I don’t know if that speaks to the quality of my choices or my fear of change.
I highly recommend Hiett Hall if you’re stuck with the dorms. It doesn’t have the odor of B.O. and weed that Ormsby sports, nor does it have the barrage of insufferable freshman that Plantz always seems to supply — sorry insufferable freshman of Plantz, but when you’re a fifth-year, you’ll understand.
Hiett Hall isn’t without its faults, though. The first time I lived there, anarchy was a little bit more rampant than in recent years. Cans of Keystone Light would consistently litter the stairwells every weekend.
One Sunday morning, I got up early at the crack of noon and left my room. Walking past the computer lab, I saw that the printer station computer monitor was on the ground with its screen cracked.
When I got to the stairs, I looked into the lounge and saw one of the chairs lodged in the wall. There were a few holes in the wall around where the chair finally rested, giving the illusion that the man who forced the chair into the wall was unsatisfied with its initial placement.
Kohler Hall gets a bad rap, but it has to be one of Lawrence’s greatest housing treasures. People may not appreciate the awkwardness and cloistered habits of the residents, but if that’s all you see you’re missing the point.
You can go out and do whatever you want — like drink cans of Keystone Light and toss chairs into walls — and return to a dorm that’s not going to have piss stains in the hallways.
If you can make it out of dorm living and find yourself in an on-campus house, take full advantage of your situation. Join as many groups and fraternities as possible to increase your chances of getting in a house. The first Beta-Delt-Sig-Ep-Phi-Tau is out there, I can feel it.
The benefits of living in a house are absurd if you’re looking at it from an outsider’s perspective. You get a bathroom! You get a kitchen! You can move the furniture around!
Last year, after a happy-hour binge at the VR, I returned to my house with a fellow housemate. I needed to take a leak and sought the privacy of our bathroom. Combining the benefits of having your own bathroom with the ability to move furniture about, my housemate decided to remove the door to the bathroom so that we could continue our conversation. I find it hard to believe that this incident would be kosher in any of the dorms.
Once again, if you have any questions pertaining to your future, e-mail me at jacob.e.horn@lawrence.edu.