It’s that time of year again when prefrosh are roaming around campus asking that one pressing question, “Where should I live next year?” I suppose you could go the standard (ahem, boring) route, and tell them about dorm room size and social vibes. Or, you could choose the more creative and infinitely more fun option. If North Campus dorms were college students, what would each one be like?
Balch Hall
In conventional terms, Balch is one of the older dorms, and it houses a third of freshmen girls.
Balch is the only college student wearing floor length skirts and corsets on a regular basis. She makes jokes your grandmother tells like, “It’s raining, don’t step in a poodle!” and she just got a Facebook, which she now uses to stalk past crushes. She has an impeccable ear for gossip and a love of all things scandalous, but she just might create a scandal herself when she’s spotted with a boy beneath Balch’s famed arch. Things will go well until he realizes that she’s an octogenarian at heart.
Mary Donlon Hall
The social capital of North Campus, Donlon is that guy from the football team who is perpetually high on life. He knows 99% of the people on campus and hosts dorm parties every other night. He calls everyone “dude” and has a signature swoop in his hair just to show that he’s that cool. He’s a secret bookworm though, as evidenced by Donlon’s very own library.
Clara Dickson Hall
To a layperson, Clara Dickson Hall is but a brick colonial housing the majority of freshmen with an endless number of singles. But as a college student, Dickson is that guy that you’ve seen a thousand times in your orgo lab, but you can never quite remember his name. He’s sweet and cute, but yet somehow completely nondescript. Worth noting: his love of beach volleyball and tendency to subject himself to angsty periods of isolation.
High Rise 5
Let’s be real; High Rise is kind of sketchy. She doesn’t have the social status of Donlon but considers herself above the lowly Low Rises. She has a strange clingy quality brought on by cramped suite style living, and there’s a slight chance she’s either connected or dealing low-grade drugs. Or she’s just trying to perfect that elusive outsider aesthetic. (Literally, she’s in the middle of nowhere.)
Low Rise 6 & 7
The Low Rises are located on the fringes of North Campus and offer pseudo-apartments to compensate for a less-than-thrilling aesthetic. The human incarnation of the low rises is most likely albino due to lack of sunlight; he lives primarily underground in “riot-proof” housing. He’s the lowest on the totem pole by far but takes comfort in the friendships brought on by shared horror and in roasting s’mores using the Low Rises’ pitiful consolation prize of working fireplaces.
Mews Hall
Mews is all about togetherness, sponsoring group dinners and movie nights. If Mews were a person, he’d be that guy that speaks extremely slowly because he’s so chill and can always be found with at least twenty of his closest friends surrounding him. There’s an underlying tension between East and West Mews, but at the end of the day, he just wants everyone to get along. Mr. Congeniality, anyone?
Court-Kay-Bauer Hall
Court-Kay-Bauer, along with Mews, is one of the newer dorms on North Campus, complete with pastel-painted walls and weirdly shaped windows. Court-Kay-Bauer is that obnoxious girl from your discussion section who finds a way to talk about herself in every conversation. (Relax, CKB, we know you have air-conditioning!) She never repeats an outfit and cares way too much about her Instagram aesthetic. But let’s be real, she has the character of my shoelace, and the preppiness gets really old. Never ask her how she’s doing; she’ll keep you talking for a half hour about the teacup pig she hopes to one day own.
Dorm stigmas aside, all North Campus dorms have their perks and drawbacks. And at the end of the day, we’re all in this together!
