Here come the biggest questions to all the incoming and returning students who want to live on the campus of BGSU: what the best dorm is and how to choose the best dorm.
To answer those questions, we first need to address what criteria matter the most when students choose which dorm to live on campus. Joshua Maxwell, associate director of the Office of Residence Life, has answered a few questions regarding this issue.
“Students should consider criteria that are important to them,” Joshua Maxwell stated when being asked about what features students should pay attention to when choosing a dorm to live.
The best residence hall is the one that meets each student’s need and everyone’s need is different. For instance, one student may want to live in a residence hall that has air conditioning and the other student may have problems relating to financial insecurity, so they would want the cheapest dorm.
“I came from a low socioeconomic status family when I came to college, so to find the cheapest residence hall was the most important to me,” Mr. Maxwell elaborated on the subject.
Students should not consider the most important criteria, but rather consider what criteria value most for them. For example, this student may value the cost of the dorm, how easy it is to make friends in this dorm than the other, how important it is for students to be close to their academic building, and so on.
“We have the policy and community living standards that we work with to enforce and can be addressed in real-time regarding the behavior issue in the dorm,” Mr. Maxwell answered during the question about the noise level in the dorm.
“The “best” residence hall for one student may be the worst for another, and someone’s worst hall might be the best hall for others,” Mr. Maxwell mentioned when talking about his opinion on the best and worst dorms on campus.
For example, Centennial might be the best dorm for this student, but it might be the worst to others due to the price.
“The room change process and the room change selection does not end unless the students want it to,” answered the question about how students can change their dorm if they are not pleased with the dorm that they are in.
The Residence Life office will continue to do whatever they can within their power to address each student’s needs. They continue to go through the request list of room change to begin the process according to the desire of each student as they get some changing and shifting in the room which allows open space. They try their best to accommodate each student and help them to live where they want to live.
“For some students, it doesn’t matter which hall they are living, it is more important about the person that they are living with,” he mentioned.
“Focus on what you can control like engaging and getting to know your neighbors, involving the hall council or doing activities to join the life of the building and doing things to make the dorm feel more like home as opposed to a place where you just go to sleep. That is the ultimate thing that we want students to experience with the on-campus life,” he suggested the ways students can do to engage with their dorm.
There is no such thing as a bad residence hall. There is no right solution to finding the right hall, but it is always about the personalized individual approach. In addition, Learning Communities are a good way to engage with like-minded people and to live with people that experience the same thing. It can provide students the level of support that is truly unique.
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