[dhwilkin]

Agreed. That's what I did my first two years. Also, if you have the money and discipline, get an apartment in a relatively quiet neighborhood. There's nothing worse than a bunch of drunken morons keeping you up at all hours by screaming back & forth.

 

[MooGoesTheCow]

yah, definitely take kerykeion's advice and room with a friend. i didn't have a choice my freshman year, as i was the only one from my hs going to this college. luckily, i got into one of the best apartments (not a dorm) owned by the school. at the end of the school year, we get to decide whether to stay as is or move to a different apartment, and if we stay, we can bring in a friend. i was happy where i was, and i had a good roommate who i got along with nicely. so we both reserved our room to share the next year. but then, without telling me, the roommate dropped out of school over summer

so it was too late to bring in someone else, as everyone had already reserved housing. i got stuck with my current roommate, blech. ah, but still, i survived a year with him, and he was going to move off campus with his drinking buddies, or so he told me. so i reserved the room and invited a buddy to come aboard. but as things always go wrong with my life, the bad roommate decided that since he would actually have to spend his own money to move off campus, he decided to stay right where he was at the last minute. that left me in a bind, because all the good housing was already reserved, and the closest off campus apartments were rented out. so i could move to a crap dorm with freshmen, or stay where i was.
Argh!

and yeah, i'm sure my life is relatively tame compared with lots of you other people

oh, btw, kerykeion, i go to carnegie mellon u., which happens to be right next door (literally) to u. pitt. any of you hs seniors out there want to come keep me company? it's a lonely place being the only headpone enthusiast that i know of in a sea of sony behind-the-ear's

 

[chych]

Hey thats cool, I'm applying to CMU, its one of my top college choices... good, now I somewhat know two people who go there, one being an audiophile, who hoo!

 

[squirt]

Disturbed,
it really is bad but it never seems to get through some college students (not any here i'm sure) that they are only endangering themselves and others...as i'm typing this the alarms are going off again at the dorms for the second time today and the days long from over...sadly there was a house fire this morning less than a mile from where i live that killed one college student from Guam yet the false alarms just keep happening

 

[MooGoesTheCow]

squirt,

that totally is horrible, what you describe is happening with the false fire alarms. this "crying wolf" so to speak is outrageous, and i am surprised that the culprit(s) have not been caught, since this is a frequent recurrence. i know i would be very upset if the fire alarm in my building went off in the middle of the night and it was due to some prank a college student lacking brains was pulling.

if it were me, and the fire alarm was going off in a particular building on a daily basis, i would have a policeman stand in hiding inside the building throughout the day/night, so that when the alarm goes off, the officer could catch the person(s) responsible.

 

[disturbed]

Quote:

Originally posted by MooGoesTheCow squirt, that totally is horrible, what you describe is happening with the false fire alarms. this "crying wolf" so to speak is outrageous, and i am surprised that the culprit(s) have not been caught, since this is a frequent recurrence. i know i would be very upset if the fire alarm in my building went off in the middle of the night and it was due to some prank a college student lacking brains was pulling. if it were me, and the fire alarm was going off in a particular building on a daily basis, i would have a policeman stand in hiding inside the building throughout the day/night, so that when the alarm goes off, the officer could catch the person(s) responsible.

zigactikaly youre ferpectly rite

Really strange that someone didnt do something about this dude
Why dont you call the firedepartment? the police?

Better yet do some spying find out who the guy is and then set his room on fire and when he screams for help tell him were sory we though its a false alarm.....ok im cruel but think of how many lives can be lost?

Do something STOP him....call the congress....the navy....the marines.....

 

[coolvij]

kerykeion: thanx for the tip. I would hate for my life to be negatively affected by an idiot roomate......

 

[mc whak]

When I was away at college, they ran out of places for students to stay. I ended up having to live in a dorm at a girls college (not as cool as one would think). We had to catch a bus to campus it was so far away. My roommate was from Seoul, S. Korea. He spoke english, but not very good (I asked him for a rubberband once, after 10 minutes of him trying to figure out what I was talking about...he didn't have one). Our suite mates (two rooms sharing one bathroom) were the 24/7 partiers. They started harrassing my roommate (who was never there, so in essence they were harrassing me). Leaving notes under the door that were soaked with a mystery liquid (no I didn't touch them). One night it got so bad that I had to call the police. The police came and yelled at them about racial harrassment and they shut up. Luckily, the next day the college called and told me there was finally a room on campus.

I show up at my new room. I open the door. WHAT THE F$%#!!! It looked like a bomb went off. After shoving his crap to one side of the room I started moving my crap in. Later that evening, I finally meet the "thing" that is my new roommate. Fat, slobering, fratboy. Sorry if you're a frat boy, but damn I hate 'em. The guy showered once a week (no kidding). The rest of the time he dumped Stetson cologne on so as not to smell like ass. He insisted on wearing leather loafers w/o socks (mmmm...leather and sweaty feet...what a smell). The dude smelled SOOOO bad, that other people on our floor took a marker and marked on the wall outside of our room how far away they could smell him (10' !!!!). I'd stay up until I was ready to pass out (6am) and then go to bed. He came home drunk one night and dropped a Hawaiian Punch down into my box of CD's. Everything was coated in a red, sticky goo. I ended up with a 0.0 GPA...the school said, "Don't come back". And I never did.

THE END

 

[disturbed]

Quote:

Originally posted by mc whak When I was away at college, they ran out of places for students to stay. I ended up having to live in a dorm at a girls college (not as cool as one would think). We had to catch a bus to campus it was so far away. My roommate was from Seoul, S. Korea. He spoke english, but not very good (I asked him for a rubberband once, after 10 minutes of him trying to figure out what I was talking about...he didn't have one). Our suite mates (two rooms sharing one bathroom) were the 24/7 partiers. They started harrassing my roommate (who was never there, so in essence they were harrassing me). Leaving notes under the door that were soaked with a mystery liquid (no I didn't touch them). One night it got so bad that I had to call the police. The police came and yelled at them about racial harrassment and they shut up. Luckily, the next day the college called and told me there was finally a room on campus. I show up at my new room. I open the door. WHAT THE F$%#!!! It looked like a bomb went off. After shoving his crap to one side of the room I started moving my crap in. Later that evening, I finally meet the "thing" that is my new roommate. Fat, slobering, fratboy. Sorry if you're a frat boy, but damn I hate 'em. The guy showered once a week (no kidding). The rest of the time he dumped Stetson cologne on so as not to smell like ass. He insisted on wearing leather loafers w/o socks (mmmm...leather and sweaty feet...what a smell). The dude smelled SOOOO bad, that other people on our floor took a marker and marked on the wall outside of our room how far away they could smell him (10' !!!!). I'd stay up until I was ready to pass out (6am) and then go to bed. He came home drunk one night and dropped a Hawaiian Punch down into my box of CD's. Everything was coated in a red, sticky goo. I ended up with a 0.0 GPA...the school said, "Don't come back". And I never did. THE END

Ouch! That was bad!

I feel for you man...Ive got a lovely gpa of 2.85 now....dropped it from 3.6

I wonder how low itll get

 

[skippy]

wow, i thought my 0.27 was bad.

 

[ai0tron]

Hey I dont feel so bad about my sub 3.0 now. I dont even know exactly what it is and haven't for a while now because I don't really care... it's somewhere around 2.5 perhaps. I busted my ass the first quarter of my freshman year, then 3 days till finals were due my computer fried and I had to turn to an incomplete back up. I had the most splendid material that at the time was better than most senior projects but it didn't meet the requirements of the project specification. I got a B and decided I hated school... Oh well.

Eversince then my outlook on life changed somewhat. I realized that hardwork and perseverence don't always pay off. I began to realize that there was a lot of hardwork and perseverence that was going to **** all around me. Many people working hard and recieving nothing in return. I then realized that as an artist I really couldn't be graded. And yet I was always subjected to grading as were all other artists. Further enlightenment proved that art school was in some ways about learning to be an artist but the primary function of art school was to teach an artist how to function in society. To teach us how to deny what we are so that we can succeed in todays workplace. To put aside the urge to say something signifigant just so we can be "successful". I then realized that college is itself a finacial trap, and that perhaps my entire upbringing had been twisted by the governments desire that I become "educated". By going to college and dedicating the vast majority of my life to making the grade I had constrained myself to a path which existed long before I ever trod upon it. I was in essence living another persons dreams and this I believe is what many Americans live. Education is a curse of wonderment. It opens the door to a world with no answers.

As for a drunken story, a friend and I once tried to hotwire a backhoe so we could dig a trench to the nearby savannah river and flood the city. I ended up with a sign off the back of the thing that said "wide load" on it.

 

[ponzio]

Talk about crazy roommates -

One night after dinner during my first month of college I stopped by my dorm's common area. I immediately noticed that all the tables and chairs were not in their usual positions, that the TV was very very loud, and the people dead silent. It was the 7pm Star Treck :Next Generation meeting of the Hopkins Science Fiction Association. Wait, that's not the scary part.

I navigated around the newly arranged furniture and watched for a few moments as Patrick Stewart (aka Jean-Luc) doled out his usual deadpan. As I watched I experienced one of those frightening epipheral moments one sees at the climax of a mystery film. My realization, however, was completely unrelated to the plot of the program - It was . . .




that they had rearranged the furniture of our common area to mirror the deck of the Enterprise!!


Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhh.




Sometimes I wish I hadn't gone to school with so many other engineer / science types. Bring on the raging drunks!

 

[Tim D]

Skip the following if you don't care to read about anyone's angst or epiphanies-

Hey aigod, I have a real-life counterexample to your way of thinking that unfortunately clashes with mine as well. I actually have/had a mindset somewhat like yours when it comes to the pursuit of happiness. My mindset on life, like anyone elses, constantly evolves, devolves, changes, however else you want to put it.

I believe too many young people are raised to believe that they want to live "comfortably". They are taught to make the necessary efforts in an attempt to secure this comfort or security. Often they are told that in order to live a comfortable life, they must work hard and be well educated in the early stages of their life. However therein lies the problem as I see it. If you are told to expend effort, only so that you may live more comfortably later in life, is this just not an attempt of being highly efficient at being lazy? For example, the life of a hard laborer can be argued to be filled with more adversity, than that of a highly educated/skilled worker. The problem being, I think it is the inner nature of people to WANT continual adverisity and not "comfort" as often depicted in the American Dream. And I think there are events for which people realize living for only comfort is a delusion, and it is facing continual adversity that drives people. Hence the reason I think so many people can and do work hard, is that they aren't in sight of any real goal, and they create psuedo-goals like "I'm gonna get all A's" and are able to stay on track because they are focusing on the journey itself which indeed can present a challenge.

I have a friend whose mindset has changed gradually and considerably recently, and he was all about the American Dream before, and I was NEVER envious of his success. His previous mindset, as he confided in me, was that he loved CONTROL. It was something he especially picked up as a pre-med. He was always incredibly successful, and saying he was an overachiever would be an understatement. Indeed when looking at his track record he did seem very much in control of his destiny, and anything and everything he pursued he easily accomplished above others.

Things have happened in which he realized this control was only a delusion leaving him incredibly confused and sometimes depressed. However he has shown me that he is able to turn all his efforts and success not into "comfort", but into an ongoing struggle. He also believes to have truly found his calling, whereas before he pursued goals with the ulterior motive of his own security, comfort, and control. The friend that I am talking who is younger than me by 1 year donated 50k recently to an Afghan Refugee charity, and has taken it upon himself to be very active in the fight for humanity. And THIS is something I am very envious of. I realized that he found a calling for which there is a goal worthy enough to challenge the whole of mankind, then surely it isn't a goal I'd ever call deluded. Look at most of the movies or books we read...we romanticize about living a challenge of epic proportions.

I don't have much point, except to say the goal of working hard for comfort to me is actually an act of laziness. And that paradox is the reason this goal is rarely achieved. The possibility that "comfort" as defined in the American Dream is not at all comforting. And the true dreams are of what is written in movies or books. To find and live a continual challenge that you feel is worthy of a movie or book.

 

[coolvij]

Tim D: quite so...........I really truly agree with that.

 

[DanG]

I don't think it's fair to say that a randomly assigned room-mate will always be a poor match with one's own personality.

That said, I chose to have a single here in college. Why? Because I really just don't need the risk of being partnered with someone else based on the only two really applicable questions on my housing questionnaire: "Out of the following 7 types of music, which would you least like to hear?" and "Do you smoke?"

I know plenty of people here at my college and at my friends' colleges as well who get along fine (sometimes even great) with their room-mates. Many others are unhappy or lukewarm about their new relationship. But in my experience, it's been the case that a random roomie can be a good match or a bad match with approximately equal frequency -- but an open mind can help. Then again, if you do get a bad room-mate, do your best to get out of that situation! But also keep in mind the fact that it's not always your choice whether to have a room-mate or not.