Enjoying dorm life: Tips for living on campus

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Enjoying dorm life: Tips for living on campus
August 21, 2010
MARY PICKETT Of The Gazette Staff
The Billings Gazette

Talista Stevens’ college dorm room is an explosion of pink.

“Everyone buys me pink stuff,” said Stevens, a Montana State University Billings junior from Lodge Grass.

Stevens stayed in her dorm room over the summer while she worked for the student housing office and will keep that room this fall when she returns to classes.

She has gauzy pink curtains on the windows, a pink comforter and, over her bed, a faux canopy that she made by attaching a pink-patterned sheet to the ceiling with pushpins.

Pink and brown polka dots cover her pillowcases and appear on the walls.

Along wall shelves, pink and orange storage baskets corral smaller items. Fuzzy brown and pink storage cubes provide more storage space.

She has a pink clock, and neon pink tape outlines her closet door mirror.

Even a Pittsburgh Steelers logo is pink.

Guys, too, personalize their dorm rooms.

Michael Stenberg, a senior mass-communications student from Billings, follows a “modernish theme” in his MSU Billings dorm room with a black comforter on his bed, maroon pillow cases, a small black sofa and a black 50-inch TV on top of a black entertainment center.

Stenberg created a double bed by propping two single beds on cinder blocks and bed risers to give him more storage space underneath.

As returning students, Stenberg and Stevens got first crack at single rooms. Stenberg also gets priority because he is a resident assistant.

MSU Billings’ two undergraduate dorm rooms are expected to be full this fall, said Jeff Rosenberry, assistant housing director.

MSU Billings has 390 dorm rooms in Petro and Rimrock halls. By early August, 605 undergrad students had signed up for the dorms. Last fall 524 students lived in the dorms.

The numbers reflect a couple of trends, Rosenberry said.

The university is attracting more out-of-state students who want to live on campus.

An increasing number of returning students also want to continue to live in the dorms. Seven percent more students are coming back into the dorms this fall than last year, Rosenberry said.

Freshmen are required to live on campus except for Yellowstone County students, many of whom live at home. Other first-year students, including those with children, also can live off campus.

Freshmen at MSU in Bozeman also have to live on campus, with some exceptions, said Tammie Brown, director of residence life.

Brown manages the small city of 1,909 undergraduate dorm rooms and 702 family and graduate dorm units at MSU.

Things have changed a lot since she lived in the dorms while attending MSU Billings — then Eastern Montana College, Brown said.

Students bring an increasing array of electronic gadgets, including computers, cell phones, microwaves, refrigerators and every form of electronic entertainment devices.

Faculty and staff helping students the first day that dorms are open are amazed at what students haul to college, said Susan Fraser, who organizes Move-In Day in Bozeman.

Students have shown up with a full set of snow tires, ski gear, cases of ramen noodles and even kayaks, all of which have to be shoehorned somehow into a dorm room.

“You wonder where they are going to put it all,” Fraser said.

© Copyright 2010, The Billings Gazette, Billings, MT

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