OT: Is this normal?

[Spoo]

My best advice is to get out of the dorm environment if you don't like it. Where you live is very important, since you'll be spending much of your time there.

[Arkcon]

Spoo said:
My best advice is to get out of the dorm environment if you don't like it. Where you live is very important, since you'll be spending much of your time there.

See now, I'd disagree there. You don't have to do anything more at a dorm besides sleep and store your clothes there. You can study in a library, work in the laboratory, exercise in a sports facility, meet people you like to talk to. Plenty of people work, or run home every free moment to be with family or significant other.

I was really worried about the dorm environment, so I lived off campus at first. I saved some money, but I missed out on a good source of information on what was going on. The burnouts hanging around the dorm may well turn out to be not a bad bunch of guys -- in small doses.

[Kamog]

Well, I never lived in a dorm during university. I lived at home and took the bus for an hour in the morning and an hour back each day. I remember feeling somewhat envious of the guys who lived in residence because they could just get out of bed half an hour before class and then walk to the classroom. They can go home and get things in between classes.

[El_Phil]

Spoo said:
My best advice is to get out of the dorm environment if you don't like it. Where you live is very important, since you'll be spending much of your time there.

You will miss out on everything that is going on, lots of stuff gets around the dorms but is only put up on obscure noticeboards hidden in the uni. I would say stick with it, you'll not get the full experience spending the first year off campus.

It's only the loud guys who get noticed in a dorm or the ones with big personalities. It's the nature of the enviroment, they seem to be the only ones there but that's because everyone else gets drowned out.

Worst case, as Arkcon said, you only need to sleep and eat there. But there was only a couple of people I knew about who took it that far, and they were odd. As in ex-mental home on medication odd.

[Arkcon]

El_Phil said:
You will miss out on everything that is going on, lots of stuff gets around the dorms but is only put up on obscure noticeboards hidden in the uni.

Precisely what happened to me. I shared a house with some guys who didn't go to college when I first went away. I didn't even know it was time to register for classes for the next semester, until it was too late. Fortuneately, the department was generous with my serious lack of awareness, and let me register late ... paying extra ... missing out on the prime courses, obviously. At least I didn't have to go home.