Hardcore Housing

I like to think of myself as being a member of the most hardcore floor at Dartmouth. Why? Because we live at the top of the absolute farthest dorm on campus. The River, my housing cluster, is widely agreed to be the worst dorm possible. We're far from everything - classes, food, the gym - and we don't even have nice, new buildings. However, as I quickly discovered, where you live on campus doesn't mean anything when you're surrounded by the incredible people that populate Dartmouth.

My first Saturday on campus, I woke up late to find half of my floormates still in their pajamas. Classes hadn't started, we had no commitments, and so Saturday was an absolutely free day. As we sat in our hall, our UGA, Michelle, walked by and told us she was making tea and that she welcomed us to join her in her room. In case you don't know, a UGA (undergraduate advisor) lives on every dorm floor at Dartmouth and is always available to help out with choosing classes and deciding on activities. More importantly, however, every UGA is an upperclassmen who wants to help scared freshman acclimatize to the Dartmouth lifestyle.

A couple of us took Michelle up on her offer and camped out on her floor, wearing pajamas and drinking tea. And so we sat, for five whole hours. We were shocked when we looked at the clock and realized we had wasted away the whole day doing... what exactly? Talking about whale tattoos and Homecoming? It's funny that even though I can't remember all that we discussed that day, the "tea party" still sticks out as one of my most valuable memories of Dartmouth so far.

I think it's because it symbolizes what Dartmouth is all about: making connections. I haven't even been on campus for a month, and I can already tell that some of the people I've met are going to become my lifelong friends.

So even though my dorm is closer to Vermont than to some parts of campus, I wouldn't change my experience for anything.