Dormitory arrangements

At my alma mater, freshman and sophomores were required to live in the dorms. We had one all female dorm, and the rest were co-ed by either floor, wing, or 'scattered'. We didn't have any on-campus apartments or married student housing... I believe if you were married you were exempted from the 2 year live-in rule.

All rooms were doubles, except for a very, very few singles, and I think a few triples here and there.

[DeltAlum]

This is one of those, "I had to walk three miles to school in knee deep snow and uphill both ways," posts.

When I was in school, (1965-69), there were no co-ed dorms -- except for a private dorm that had men and women living on different floors, and elevators that only stopped on male or female floors.

The internet hadn't been invented, so there was no computer wiring. There was one phone in the hallway per floorsection. It rang differently for every room. There were no phones in rooms at all. TV's, fridges, hotplates, etc. were either highly discouraged or against the rules.

The rooms were pretty small and had painted concrete block walls. The beds were triple bunks. No "lofts" or anything like that allowed.

The ADA hadn't been passed yet, and there were no elevators in the university dorms. Also, no air conditioning.

Dorm food was awful. The kind where you could eat the Jello with a fork. If you lived in a dorm, you had no choice of where you ate -- it was whichever cafeteria (or commons) your dorm was assigned to. You had to dress fairly nicely in the cafeterias. No hair in curlers, flip flops, etc. You pretty much had to dress like to would for class -- which was somewhat more formal then than now. On Sunday evening, you had to wear coat and tie to dinner and the girls had to wear dresses, etc. Breakfast rules were a little less stringent. There were no snacks, etc. between meal periods.

The worst thing, though, was women's "hours." A woman under 21 had to be in by 10:30 PM Sunday through Thursday, and 12:30 AM on Friday and Saturday. The could get two 1:00 AM "lates" per semester.

If men or women under 21 decided to get a room or apartment, it had to be "university approved" and the same rules (hours, etc) applied.

Oh, and there were NO opposite sex members allowed in those rooms or apartments at all, except on "open houses" (maybe once a quarter), and in those cases both parties had to have at least one foot on the room floor. That led to some creative acrobatics.

Finally, there was NO beer or liquor allowed in dorms or approved housing, even though the drinking age was 18 (for beer) in Ohio in those days.

Is it any wonder us old guys are warped?

[dzrose93]

When I was in school, all the dorms were separated by gender, except for one that was promoted as co-ed, but really wasn't. It was actually two completely separate dormitories that had breezeways connecting them to a common building where we had a microwave, TV room, and game room. Guys couldn't be even in the breezeway of the girls' section after midnight, and vice versa for the girls -- and they had RA's on duty in the common building to make sure that you weren't sneaking around.

Now, the school has grown so much that they're building new dorms, and the old ones are co-ed by floor. They'll eventually tear them down, and it's a good thing because a lot of them have mold problems.

Our rooms were the old, small, concrete block kind furnished with big ugly desks, closets, and beds that took up most of the space.

[Optimist Prime]

I think there is an all female dorm, because some girls are dumb are girly enough to only want to live with other girls. There are no all guy dorms because that is retarded.

I lived in a freshman only dorm. It was coed by sweet. I had a male roomate and shared a bathroom with two other guys plus my room mate.

Sophmore year same thing, only I was in a super suite. Two suites faciing each other only we had a chill common area where we could chill at.

[SigKapSmurf]

My dorm is:
2nd and 4th floor are coed
3rd floor is all female

I live on the 4th floor and I love it! I am in one of only two air conditioned dorms on campus and we can control the heat too which really helps out.

[sugar and spice]

I've lived in two different dorms at two different schools, and they had two totally different set ups. The first one was co-ed by wing (each floor had four wings branching off the main tower, and two were male, two were female). The second was an entirely female dorm (not my first choice, but hey, when you don't have the chance to sign up for housing until May you take what you can get).

In my experience, the majority of housing these days is either co-ed by wing or co-ed by floor. I've yet to see anything that was just co-ed by room, randomly tossing in guys and girls rooms. I think single-sex housing is on the way out -- my first school had no single-sex dorms, and the second has one that will probably remain an all-girls dorm for as long as possible (it's pretty palatial for a dorm and has a lot of history connected to it, and as soon as they get guys in there, they'll tear up the place!), but it used to have more fairly recently that got transitioned into co-ed dorms because of lack of interest.

[sherbertlemons]

Originally posted by ZTAngel
At UCF, we had a few dorms that were all girls, a few all boy dorms, and a few coed dorms. The coed dorms divided the boys and girls up by floors. Girls would be on the 3rd and 4th floor while the boys would be on the 1st and 2nd floor. That way, a bunch of guys would not be living next door to a group of girls. There were no limits on visitation.

In my experience, there were definitely limits on visitation in the traditional dorm-style housing. It definitely wasn't enforced very effectively, though.

We also have a dorm reserved for Honors and LEAD Scholars, as well as apartments that are co-ed by apartment.

[smiley21]

all of the dorms on my campus are co ed

[LuaBlanca]

all the dorms on my campus are co-ed by room. no mixing of the genders within rooms/suites.
all visitors must be signed in at all times, and the same person can not be signed in by the same resident for more than 5 consecutive nights.
unless you live in the hotel, and then anything goes. no one cares, and nothing is moderated.

[DeltAlum]

Our son lived in a dorm last year as a freshman. He was on the "National Merit" floor. There were women on one wing and men on the other with lockable doors between the wings. I'm not aware that there were any restrictions on visitation, though. The rooms were in suites with two guys in each room, and two rooms shared a single bathroom. Fairly typical. The rooms were pretty small, but efficient.

This year he has an apartment with a sophomore woman with whom he claims he is just friends. We'll see. Anyway, it's much bigger than the dorm suite and both have their own bedrooms and bathrooms, so he probably has as much privacy there as he did in the dorm.

Plus, it's only on the second floor -- not the eighth.