The Onion Dip Column is the satire section. All articles are not to be taken seriously.
I know a lot of first-year students have had horrible experiences with housing. However, I assure you that your experiences have been WAY better than mine. What happened to me, you may ask? Well, let’s just say… I had to live in DHall for my first year of college. I can hear you saying, “How is that possible? There isn’t any housing in DHall!” I will explain how I got into this situation.
Before move-in day, everything was completely normal. I was given a roommate and placed in a double in Bonchek. However, while I was arriving at the college on move-in day, there was a giant leak in the room me and my roommate were given. The room was completely flooded, although, strangely, the leak didn’t spread to any of the rooms around us or the hallway. Anyway, Franklin & Marshall College thought it would be too costly to fix the room for us, so they waterproofed the walls and turned it into a large fish tank. There were no doubles left for us in the college anywhere, and my roommate was re-assigned to the last single on campus. As for me… I got the short end of the stick. The Housing Office sent me an email that evening, “I’m very sorry that it has come to this, but we have no available housing that we can place you in. Your College House has been changed to the Dining Hall. The Dining Hall staff will promptly help you move in.”
My room was at the very back of DHall, and I had to go through the kitchen in order to get to it. The room was originally a very large pantry where food was kept, which was furnished with a bed and a closet with drawers for my clothing. There were no windows and no air conditioning. It wasn’t soundproof either, so my ears were constantly subjected to the music playing in the dining hall at the time. I must have listened to Hey, Soul Sister by Train over two thousand times throughout the year. As my College House was now DHall, I underwent a completely different orientation process than anyone else in the school. No one had ever been placed in DHall before, so the dining hall staff had to quickly think up activities for me. First, they taught me how to make the eggs, sausages, and tater tots served daily at breakfast. Then, the Dining Hall staff and I played (extremely cramped) musical chairs in the back of Kivo. Then, we got together as a team and battled the CC, Blue Line, and Flavors staff in a scavenger hunt around campus.
Living in DHall throughout the year was a struggle. As I’ve said before, It’s always loud in DHall, both in the dining area and in the kitchen, so I always had a hard time getting any work done in my room. Trying to sleep in during the weekend was just impossible. I didn’t need to swipe every time I entered DHall, but any time anyone came to my room, they needed to swipe in, which no one liked. The one good thing about my situation is that I get free food from Dhall any time I want. Whether that’s a blessing or a curse, it’s up to you to decide. However, I was given an additional tax in Flex whenever I went to any of the other campus restaurants.
I’m gladly going to be done living in DHall as I will be in Schnader next year. However, I will have to graduate with DHall at the end of my senior year. It will be very exciting being completely alone and apart from the rest of the class. Part of me is proud, as I am the first Franklin & Marshall student to ever live in the dining hall. I survived living in Dhall, which makes me feel like I can survive anything. Thank you, Dhall.
Sophomore Nicholas Carpenter is the News Editor. His email is ncarpent@fandm.edu.