catherinebyronblog

By: katbyronblog

Oct 28 2013

Category: Uncategorized

2 Comments

                Remember the first time you stepped foot on a college campus? Picking up your residence hall key and meeting you’re roommate for the first time? Remember the that feeling that filled the deep in the pit of your stomach, a mixture of excitement and terror? Try to. Going to college is a big step for many individuals, for some students they are more excited to be part of the campus life. Being able to live on a campus enables a student to be able to have “true college experience.” For some this may mean join all types of groups that are available on campus in order to grow as an individual. However, there are some that are those who are “down to get drunk” on the weekends or even the weekdays. All in all, students (residents) decided to live on campus in order to have their own  college experience.

                It is interesting to watch the brand new, fresh faced first year students enter the doors of their first residence hall to start their path to adulthood that they so desperately want. However, today’s students are a little more needed than those in the past. Residents today are used to having the constant access to the internet, flat screen TVs, and cable at their finger tips as fast as possible. God help the university if the internet goes down for more than 10 minutes.  The residents want to be able to have access to the possible leisure pool right outside their hall if they live in the warmer areas. Not to mention  the fact when the residence find out they have to share a bathroom with their floormates…all of them. But the residents want these amenities to be provided to them as soon as they enter into the hall.

                To some people (no directly connected to Residence Life) believe that this may be asking for quite a bit for the university to be able to provide all the amenities that the residents want access to within the residence hall. However, universities want to be able to attract and keep those students are have the talents that is aligned with the university’s values, so why not provide them the those amenities to create the ultimate college experience.

                One of the newest trends that are entering the residences halls is the concept of a living learning community. Now some universities had established a living learning community within the walls of their institutes; however, more and more are bringing the concept into their initiates.  For example there is a University in Colorado that is address this trend and taken full understanding of the idea. “Three new residence halls at the University of Colorado, Pueblo, address that trend. Each has a ground-level classroom that can be used for informal seminars, student project collaboration, or other learning formats that don’t hold to the conventional lecture style. A grab-and-go café is adjacent to each classroom. The classroom space can be expanded by opening a translucent frosted-glass-paneled sliding wall abutting the café. Thus, the classroom can be used for multiple purposes and for gatherings of different sizes. The space has its own outside entrance, and the sliding wall can be locked so that the room can be used by outside groups while maintaining security for the residents.”