As a first-year, I was one of many students going through the room placement process. Unlike my peers, and for reasons beyond my knowledge, I ended up in a converted study room in Dupre beside the floor lounge. Amongst a flood of nervous students all looking through their dorm assignments and hunting down their roommates, I cast a glance at the floor plan and realized, “Oh, this is not a standard room.” Hoping to get some better information about what to expect when walking in, I was informed via Class of 2029 Discord server that my particular room had a history of pipes exploding. This was not great for my ‘going to college’ collection of anxieties.

Upon relaying this information to my parents, my mom chose to be the reasonable one and instructed me to email Residence Hall Director Luca Faulkner about the room, and I was as such assured that as long as the windows were shut and heating was on, there would be no risk of pipes bursting during my stay. Upon request, I was also provided pictures of the room, and got a sense of what to expect. Wonderful! I could now proceed to freaking out about every other aspect of coming to college. Upon arriving at the room on move-in day, I realized that my idea of what to expect was rather incorrect, actually.

While converting study rooms into dorm spaces seems to be a beneficial choice at first glance, these makeshift rooms have multitudes of flaws that stand out when put in context of a long-term living space.

I quickly discovered why. What I hadn’t realized from the photographs was that two of the walls were just pieces of glass with drywall hastily installed over them. Meaning, for half of the room, there were no outlets. This was made up for by sockets lining the entirety of the other side, but room negotiations and predetermined bunk bed placement ultimately resulted in my side of the room being the one with no outlets.

Extension cords became my best friend, for better or worse.

Other minor inconveniences of the room that I would go on to discover through my first month included confusing light switches (the leftmost switch controls the rightmost light in the room, for some reason), blinds that actually do not blind much light whatsoever, a second door that used to lead into the lounge with its handle removed but not its hinges and window latches that don’t latch very well at all.

They’re deceptive. Awfully so. It might seem like the window is in place, but if you’re not careful, you can end up with a falsely closed window, where some air manages to sneak through. Every time I opened the window, I always had to fight a war to make sure it actually closed. My roommate had similar complaints about the window on the other side of the room. Eventually, the weather turned colder, and we had no reason to open windows anymore. We checked that they were closed and latched, and finally put that one grievance to rest for the winter months.

As for the other issues, I slowly learned to adapt. I got used to the dorm; molded it into a place I didn’t mind being; carved out a nook beneath my bed to work; came back home from fall break with a few more decorations to fill out the place; made it into, in all accounts, a home. I was finally coming to terms with my trainwreck of a dorm room. A mutual respect.

Until I got lemons squeezed straight into my eyes. I came back to my dorm room Sunday, tired from working in the first matinee performance of “The 39 Steps” to find my roommate and two of our mutual friends surrounding a giant crack in our window.

Knowing Facilities Services is closed on weekends, one of the friends tracked down a Resident Assistant as I immediately started gathering my valuables into bags. She came back, with the instruction to call Public Safety, which we did. Public Safety then sent someone down who looked at the crack and basically said it was out of his jurisdiction. He then informed us he could, however, get in contact with Facilities Services. He informed us that they’d send someone down that night or the next morning, depending on if it was an emergency. Because a crack in a window on a 20 degree night might not be an emergency. A Facilities Services representative came by a few hours later. He informed us that he specialized in heating, so again, this was a problem out of his jurisdiction. He told us that he could put a work order in the following morning. He also checked around the room and found the source of the crack pretty easily.

Remember that window latching trouble? Despite checking about 10 times to make sure they were actually shut, apparently one of the windows wasn’t latched well enough and had leaked enough cold air for the pressure to crack a window. Seems a bit like a safety hazard, especially considering the room’s history of pipes bursting.

Anyway, we’re not really sure when we’re getting our window fixed. The temporary solution was basically just slapping some painter’s tape over the crack, and the heating specialist told us it’s safe because there’s two panes of glass. This temporary solution is supposed to last until we get the new window, but progress moves at an uncertain pace. It was measured on Wednesday, but since the window is so big it will likely take a while for the new glass to ship in.

My paranoia has not ceased. My poor mattress is currently shoved as far away from the window as possible, and all of my electronics save for my laptop and phone have been shoved into a suitcase that waits by the door in case the window-pocalypse hits.

And as the cherry on top, I have been informed that my room was unlocked and unoccupied last year. I really don’t need to think about that further. I hate this room enough, thank you.

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