As a freshman entering the housing lottery for the first time, I have only heard the most daunting of rumors. It’s been said that “it’s one of the most stressful times of the year,” and that “you’ll be lucky if you don’t lose a friend in the process”.
All of this negative hype forces you to imagine the worst possible scenarios: being separated from your potential suitemates, ending up in Southside, or worst of all, being left dorm-less.
By going into any situation with a negative mindset, you are setting yourself up for misery.
The student population is growing. The Class of 2017 consists of 150 more students than the Admissions Office had initially intended, and the amount of yearly freshman applications has been steadily on the rise. This poses the potential for a severe housing crisis.
But it’s not as though we’re being left on the streets. The university administration is making a concerted effort to create a process that is as painless as possible.
O’Brien Hall was newly constructed in 2012 and Brooks Crossing is scheduled to be completed in time for next semester. Not only do these options increase the on campus student housing capacity, but they will also open up more “first choice” options for underclassmen students as upperclassmen, who have priority, rush to fill in the newer and more coveted buildings.
In 2013, the entire housing lottery was shifted online. This essentially eliminated the entire system of a true “lottery”. In the former system, each student would be assigned a point value according to their class year, and then based on your point value, you would be assigned a random lottery number. Then, on the day for which your lottery number was scheduled, students would attend “room draw sessions”, where they would wait in line and then physically choose the room in which they would live. It was literally a hands-on experience.
But starting last year, the entire system was moved online. Now, we fill out an online contract and then wait. Weeks later, we receive our scheduled time, and then we wait some more. Finally, once the day of the “drawing” arrives, we wait for the exact two-minute interval to which we were assigned and then scramble as fast as we can to search through all of the remaining vacant rooms to make our selection.
Even though it is designed to be “instantaneous”, the procedure still seems painstakingly slow. Then, maybe if we’re lucky, we will end up in the right place at the right time.
Is all of this sitting, waiting, and wishing worth the stress? It is just a room.
We all try to convince ourselves that it really doesn’t matter.
This is true: it isn’t the physical location of the building or the room number or the color of the carpets that makes a home; it is what you do with the space.
After all, your friend is still your friend, whether or not you share a bathroom, a door, or a poster. Save the stressful energy, the drama, and the worry that is being focused on the housing lottery and re-concentrate it on something that matters more. A two-minute walk between buildings or up that extra flight of stairs may even strengthen your friendship.
Douglass is a member of
the Class of 2017.
