10 Worst Dorms in America

[victoriana]

Originally Posted by AGDee

Ok, the lower level used to be the Eateries and a convenience store and the upper level was a Dining Commons. The Eateries wasn't that extensive back then, they had hamburgers, hot dogs fries and the BEST nachos ever. I only ever got nachos there... lol.

The campus has gone through a lot of changes over the past few years... they built a brand new student center with a ton of food places (Taco Bell, KFC, Wendy's, Subway, Sbarro), they're completely renovating Pray Harrold, they're almost done with gutting Mark Jefferson and giving it a major facelift, they plan to renovate Strong, and they plan to turn the old Jones-Goddard residence halls into some sort of arts village that connects with Alex and Quirk. We have classes in pretty much every building now, even McKenney.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by victoriana

The campus has gone through a lot of changes over the past few years... they built a brand new student center with a ton of food places (Taco Bell, KFC, Wendy's, Subway, Sbarro), they're completely renovating Pray Harrold, they're almost done with gutting Mark Jefferson and giving it a major facelift, they plan to renovate Strong, and they plan to turn the old Jones-Goddard residence halls into some sort of arts village that connects with Alex and Quirk. We have classes in pretty much every building now, even McKenney.

Yeah, they have done even more than that since I was last a student there! The lake house and the library are new since my time too. Our big thing was the IM building. That was really new when I was there. The whole college of business complex was built after my time too. The third tower on the Hill was bascially a hotel when I was there. (Hill and Pittman were dorms.. those folks had to come down to Phelps/Sellers/Walton/Putnam for meals too) The walk from the Hill to the Eateries area was scary too, nothing but woods and the big parking lot along there.. not real safe at night, especially.

[victoriana]

Originally Posted by AGDee

Yeah, they have done even more than that since I was last a student there! The lake house and the library are new since my time too. Our big thing was the IM building. That was really new when I was there. The whole college of business complex was built after my time too. The third tower on the Hill was bascially a hotel when I was there. (Hill and Pittman were dorms.. those folks had to come down to Phelps/Sellers/Walton/Putnam for meals too) The walk from the Hill to the Eateries area was scary too, nothing but woods and the big parking lot along there.. not real safe at night, especially.

Thankfully they built a food place right next to the Towers and put a whole bunch of street lamps and blue emergency phones on all the sidewalks, including the scary woods one!

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by victoriana

Thankfully they built a food place right next to the Towers and put a whole bunch of street lamps and blue emergency phones on all the sidewalks, including the scary woods one!

Good! And that, GC, is the evolution of Eastern Michigan University from 1983 to 2011..lol. /end hijack

[victoriana]

Originally Posted by AGDee

Good! And that, GC, is the evolution of Eastern Michigan University from 1983 to 2011..lol. /end hijack

And we didn't even talk about Greek housing

[aephi alum]

Originally Posted by victoriana

The campus has gone through a lot of changes over the past few years... they built a brand new student center with a ton of food places (Taco Bell, KFC, Wendy's, Subway, Sbarro)

I thought you said food places.

Back in the day, we had two types of dorms, food-plan-wise. If you chose a dorm with a cafeteria, you were required to put a (considerable) minimum dollar amount into a food plan - it was a declining-balance, use it or lose it plan. If you chose a dorm without a cafeteria (as I did), you could put whatever you wanted into your food plan, and you got a refund at the end of the year for whatever you hadn't used. Which saved my butt, as I lived in a non-cafeteria dorm with kitchens in every suite and I love to cook. The main cafeteria in the student center had various stations, including a Burger King (or was it a McDonald's?). No matter what I got there, BK, pasta station, salad bar, etc. - I got food poisoning. So I gave up. The student center also had a small market with a deli counter, so when I met my sisters or other friends for lunch at the main cafeteria, I bought a sub at the market (they made really good chicken subs) and went into the dining room through the back door.

I threw a couple hundred bucks into my account every year so I could get tea and a bagel on my way to morning classes. I typically got lunch at the food trucks (surprisingly cheap and healthy unless you went to the pizza truck ) and cooked my own dinner or went out. There was a small but good Indian food store a short walk from campus... good source for dhal, basmati rice, and Indian spices.

[KSUViolet06]

^^^We didn't have the option of a meal plan based on dorms.

We had 3 different meal plans (different dollar amounts depending on the number of meals you'd eat on campus.)

Basic: The one everyone had. It was a decent amount.
Plus: The "I'm an athlete & need to eat more than everyone else so I need more money" plan. It was like double the basic plan
Light: For people who didn't live on campus but wanted some dining plan money to buy snacks/lunch.

All of our plans were the "use it or lose it" kind. That made for a fun "who wants ice cream?" or "who wants overpriced grocery items from the campus store?" trip at the end of the semester because someone always had a ridiculous amount of leftover money.

A lot of people complain about their school's food but ours was actually pretty good. Between all the dining halls, you always could find something good. It was nice because your dining plan was good at all halls and you didn't have to stick to the one in/near your building.

Some of my friends went to smaller schools that only had ONE cafeteria and only served like one choice for every meal.

I visited my friend at a really small school with one cafeteria and the food that day was something everyone dubbed "mystery meatloaf." It reminded me of HS. When she came up to visit me, she thought the streets were paved with gold. loll

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

Some of my friends went to smaller schools that only had ONE cafeteria and only served like one choice for every meal.

My alma mater wasn't small by any means, but we only had one main cafeteria. When I started, it was sub-par. The raised the bar after I graduated, though.

Our meal plans were "x amount of meals per week, plus y Mav Bucks." The number of meals per week and number of Mav Bucks varied based on the type of plan you got. Meals could only be redeemed at the cafeteria, but the Bucks could be used at any of the food vendors on campus and at various locations throughout the city (including McDonald's, Wendy's, etc).

The meal plans weren't required, though, so I never got one. I preferred to cook at my apartment and go to campus when they had midnight breakfasts for finals.

[KSUViolet06]

Yeah, I visited a campus for sorority business and they only had one cafeteria but it was AMAZING. So I guess it depends.

We had FlashCash in addition to meal plans but it was like a debit card account that you/your parents put money in (not like a meal plan.) You could use it at other little places on campus that didn't take meal plans or only took meal plan up to a certain time (ex: the coffee place in the library didn't take meal plans.)

[knight_shadow]

IIRC, our Student Congress had an agreement with the nearby restaurants, so our regular IDs somehow managed to work.

Eventually, though, our school made a deal with Wells Fargo, so our student IDs were also debit cards. The meal plans included some Mav Bucks, but after they were gone, you (or you parents) could add more to it.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by knight_shadow

IIRC, our Student Congress had an agreement with the nearby restaurants, so our regular IDs somehow managed to work.

You could use your campus meal plan at off-campus places?

JEALOUS. Our off-campus restaurants only took Flashcash (debit money that you put on your acct) and there weren't many that did that.

If Chipotle had taken meal plan, I would have been a.) 900 lbs and b.) out of meal plan money by Thanksgiving.

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

You could use your campus meal plan at off-campus places?

JEALOUS.

If Chipotle had taken meal plan, I would have been a.) 900 lbs and b.) out of meal plan money by Thanksgiving.

LOL

The "meal plan" couldn't be used, but the "Mav Bucks" could. The money was rolled up in your room and board, but still could be used separately.

Sidebar: I hate Chipotle. If I could send them all to Ohio, I would.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by knight_shadow

LOL

The "meal plan" couldn't be used, but the "Mav Bucks" could. The money was rolled up in your room and board, but still could be used separately.

Sidebar: I hate Chipotle. If I could send them all to Ohio, I would.

Oh ok. I get it.

And I know you hate it. lol. Fortunately, I am less than 10 minutes in a car from one. If you sent me all of the Chipotles in TX, that would put one within walking distance and that would make me the size of Mars by summer. no bueno.

[aephi alum]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

^^^We didn't have the option of a meal plan based on dorms.

All of our plans were the "use it or lose it" kind. That made for a fun "who wants ice cream?" or "who wants overpriced grocery items from the campus store?" trip at the end of the semester because someone always had a ridiculous amount of leftover money.

This is part of the reason I chose a dorm that had no cafeteria and that had a suite setup with kitchens accessible to all residents. I could get a (crappy) meal on campus if I wanted, but there was really no need. Why buy a generic cafeteria meal when I could make kheema and rice?

My friends with "use it or lose it" plans would hit the on-campus convenience store and buy up shit-tons of ice cream, chips, dip, etc. at the end of the semester. It made for some interesting finals-week study breaks.

My husband lived in one of the "required food plan" dorms during his freshman year. I made kheema - and he proposed. The way to a man's heart is indeed through his stomach

[tld221]

Originally Posted by AnotherKD

I agree that the list (I won't call it an article, because nothing was really written) wasn't that great. One comment was "It's NYC, so you take what you can get, but our bedroom was too small. No room to walk or open the closet door..." Really? Pretty much every freshman dorm is small, especially in a big city. At Pitt, the freshman dorms were in round, cylindrical towers, and so all of the rooms were pie-shaped and super small. Pretty awkward.

Just saw! Tower A is ranked as #14 worst dorm in the country.

Even better, I just saw the "best dorm" list. A quote from one: "WEST CAMPUS IS WHERE ITS AT. SOUTH IS COOL TOO. MAIN IS ALSO THE SHIZ." Ha.

Ha! They ranked Goddard... of the 5 freshman (i think 6 now) residence halls (I still can't say "dorms" without my RD saying "dorms are places you sleep, our students live here") NYU has, I can think of dorms WAY WORSE. Weinstein for one (though it makes up for it by having 2 dining halls), Cliff St (an upperclass hall, but apparently doesnt exist anymore and UBER small for the price, even for NYU/NYC), even Brittany was pretty gross. Plus, Goddard was grographically prime ResHall real estate - across from the park, kitty corner from the library and student center, on top of a Starbucks, and really, every important building was within a block or two.

Easily wouldve lived in Goddard but i'm Team Hayden ALL DAY. /NYUdormrant

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

It's funny--I always thought community bathrooms were part of the college experience. My freshman dorm, however, had it set up where every two rooms shared a bathroom. That was nice--and the custodians let us keep our stuff in the bathrooms. It was a nice surprise, but since we couldn't pick our freshman dorms it wasn't a big deal.

We were also required to live in the dorms for the first 3 out of our 4 years. About half the senior class lived off-campus. I stayed in the dorms, as did most of my friends and virtually all of my sorority sisters. The way I saw it was that I had the rest of my life to live "off-campus." I could walk to my classes and all the restaurants/bars, someone was cleaning my bathroom, and it was as high-security.

When I think of the "worst" dorms, I think of vermin, mold, elevators that don't work, ancient fire alarms that trip easily, out of date wiring (my freshman dorm didn't have that many plugs--maybe fine for the 1950s when it was built, but not so much for the late 90s), and the actual quality of life stuff. College kids today--ridiclously pampered!

Srsly. I LOVED living in campus housing. One flat rate for everything (heat/hot water, cable, electricity, laundry room, doorman/security, front desk, dining hall, study lounge, game room) makes way more sense to me.

Originally Posted by knight_shadow

My alma mater wasn't small by any means, but we only had one main cafeteria. When I started, it was sub-par. The raised the bar after I graduated, though.

Our meal plans were "x amount of meals per week, plus y Mav Bucks." The number of meals per week and number of Mav Bucks varied based on the type of plan you got. Meals could only be redeemed at the cafeteria, but the Bucks could be used at any of the food vendors on campus and at various locations throughout the city (including McDonald's, Wendy's, etc).

The meal plans weren't required, though, so I never got one. I preferred to cook at my apartment and go to campus when they had midnight breakfasts for finals.

1. Our meal plan was very similar, and I was surprised what it covered. The money shot was when Weinstein got Quiznos and Chik-Fil-A on meal plan...it was so on like Donkey Kong.

2. you, cooking, and midnight breakfast - wouldve totally wifed you before graduation. believe that.