Dorm Life "Hacks"

 Happy Monday, everyone!

So in the past, I did a post on Alliot "hacks"... today I'm going to give you some tips for living in a dorm! Dorm life is totally different from living at home. You go from living with a handful of people to sharing four bathrooms with twenty eight! After the adjustment, it's really not so bad. The good thing about living in a building with roughly 200 other people? There's always someone around. But here are some tips I have picked up:

1. Wake up at 6:50 to shower. A lot of people, especially first years, have class that starts at 8:30. This means that they usually get up around 7 so they can shower, get ready, and grab breakfast in Alliot before class. This also means that around 7:05, everyone wants to shower. Everyone is really respectful and showers quickly, but you can avoid the rush by waking up just ten minutes earlier.

2. Don't slam your door. I have been guilty of this one a lot lately. It's super easy to just let the door shut on it's own (it's heavy enough to swing shut) but the loud noise that results will really irritate your neighbors. When you're studying, all it takes is one loud BANG to distract you. To fix this, either make sure you're really gentle with the door, or put a sock on the top of your door. It sounds weird, but it totally works.

3. If you get takeout, keep the bag. As soon as you're done eating, throw all the takeout trash in the bag, tie it up, and put it in the garbage room in your wing. If you throw it in your room trash, it's going to stink. Takeout smells really bad if you leave around. However, if you do happen to have a room that smells like pizza, spray some febreeze and open your window to air things out.

4. You're allowed to to take fruit out of Alliot. There are bins with red apples, green apples, citrus (usually oranges or tangerines), and bananas. They're nice to take back to your room and keep for a healthy snack. One of the Alliot workers said you can take five pieces a day- that's a lot of free fruit to take advantage of!

5. If one of your friends is too sick to get out of bed to get food from Alliot, have them call Health Services (their number is 802.654.2234) and they will give you meal passes. You can take the meal pass to the KnightStand (the cafe outside of the cafeteria) and they will give you a meal pack to bring to your sick friend!

Anyways, here are just a few tips to living the dorm life! Hope everyone has a great week!