Living the residence halls here at PLU is a great experience. I would definitely recommend all students to take advantage of the on campus housing options their first years at PLU.
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| T-stad at night! |
The resident hall I currently live in, Tingelstad, is the largest residence hall out of the ten on campus, both in size and number of students, with about 360 residents distributed over nine floors.
T-stad is also the tallest building in Parkland and I have had a beautiful view of Mount Rainier outside my window all year. It looks different everyday!
I love that the people I live with on the 7th floor. We have become very close with each other and with the floor under us. I have created many meaningful relationships with many of the students on campus, but the deepest relationships have definitely formed in my hall. Living closely with fellow students is also really helpful when you are working on projects or want to have study sessions.
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| International Students helping each other with homework:) |
Central Location
Living on campus lets you be in a close vicinity to everything on campus, your classes, the library, the University Commons, Old Main Market, the gym, the pool, the concert hall, your professors' offices and your fellow students. Not to mention that the campus is just gorgeous!
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| Harstad in the evening. |
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| INside Mortved Library |
Living with a roommate
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| My awesome roommate and lovely neighbors! |
Sharing a small space with another person is definitely an experience. You might not always get along or agree on how things should be done, but you learn so much about each other through this experience. The best thing is to be open and talk to your roommate if problems do arise. One thing that I found important coming to PLU as an international student was to get in touch with your roommate early on. This way you can get to know each other before you actually live together. This way the awkward first few days of living on top of each other, will not be so bad.
Gender Neutral Housing
There has been a big debate this year about allowing Gender Neutral housing in certain halls and on certain floors of halls. This housing arrangement will be starting the Spring semester 2013. This means that if a student is uncomfortable living with a student of the same gender, he or she can apply to live in designated halls or floor where students of opposite gender can live together.
The Evolution of my Room
When I first got to campus I did not have a lot of stuff or decorations on the wall, but as the year has gone on my room has change a lot! Check it out!
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| Phase One: Getting used to the room and awaiting the arrival of my roommate. |
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| Phase Two: Getting used to sharing the space. It was very "my side your side" at first. |
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| Phase Three: We rearranged for my roommates birthday and decorated it like crazy! |
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| Phase 4: Current room set-up. Most of the space is now shared as we dare more comfortable with each other. |
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| Our room at night. |
Getting to know others on campus
When you first arrive on campus try to get to know a lot of people the first few weeks of school. During the first weeks everyone is looking to meet new people. After this phase wears off it can get more difficult to get to know people because they have found a close group of friends and become very tight knit. Also remember to make friends outside of you current friend group, if something goes sour you then have a back up group for support. A rule I make for myself is to say hi to everyone I know on campus and try to say hi to someone I don’t know on campus every day. Don't be shy!
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| Out for dinner! |
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| South Hall Event had a Photo-booth! |
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| All the girls going swimming! |
Upper vs. Lower Campus
There is a certain reputation for the two halves of the PLU campus, but if you look closely Upper and Lower campus are actually not so different. A lot of the music majors live on upper campus in close vicinity to Lagerquist Hall and the practice rooms. Lower campus is in close vicinity to the gym, track and other sport fields. Therefore it is not surprising that most of the athletes live on lower campus.
However, I have found that the two halves do not differ when it comes to friendliness or studiousness. This is a very diverse community of students that have many different interests. T-stad is often thought of as the noisy lower campus dorm, but I have found that it was not a noisy as I thought it would be, unless the Seahawks are playing that is. ;)
Events and Activities
Living on campus allows you to be close to all the action that happens around campus on a daily basis. I can assure you that there is little time to be bored with so much going on around you, such as sporting events, lectures by famous professors, concerts, dances and plays, as well as all of the clubs and organizations we have here at PLU! Each hall also arranges a bunch of fun activities for their residence and everyone else on campus.
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| Party at President Krise's House! |
We just had the Fordal Games last weekend. This was a joint Hall Event put on by Foss and Ordal, hence the name Fordal. There were Hamster Balls that you could run around in, bouncy houses and obstacle courses. There were Henna tattoos, slip n slides, basketball, volleyball, foursquare, loud music and a lot of good food! We had a bunch of cotton candy and snow cones.
Life on campus if really fun! I am so glad to have met all of the people that I now can call my friends and look forward to all of the adventures we will have together! I am ending this post by quoting my good friend and neighbor who said:
"Living in the dorms is a unique experience where education is fostered, but friendships are also created." - Jessika, '16, Tingelstad
- Madeleine
- Madeleine
