The Story

All for One, and One for (the Freshman) Hall

Jun. 13, 2008 | By Jake Robert Nelson, DSJ Opinions Editor

Living only 15 minutes from the College of William and Mary, I can confidently say that I was no stranger to the campus, but I didn’t really understand the whole cultural and societal experience that came with living on campus until I moved in.

It was a scaldingly hot August day, and my mom and I made the difficult and painstakingly long drive down Richmond Road to Monroe Hall. We unloaded everything from our small sedan and began schlepping all the necessary dorm room accoutrements up three flights of stairs to my corner room.

There were older students in fluorescent-colored shirts to help us move in, but my mom and I were somehow overlooked.

In my spacious new room, now filled with a year’s worth of antibacterial hand sanitizer and a new laptop, I met my R.A., an imposing Indian fellow named Nishant, and the College’s Vice President of Student Affairs emeritus, the famous Sam Sadler. I quickly showed my mom the way out, after a requisite kiss goodbye and a desultory promise to call her later that day.

Quickly thrust into the throes of freshman orientation, I was reborn as Jaunty Jake, the unlucky fifth “J” on my hall. Soaking in 23 first impressions was a little overwhelming, and I could not help but feel alienated as I was surrounded by what seemed like a million pre-meds from Northern Virginia’s best high schools.

I don’t know if it was the cheesy, forced mixers or the mere forces of proximity, but after a few weeks, we became one cohesive unit. We learned the Soulja Boy Dance (and I learned what the lyrics meant), went to frat parties, played Frisbee and ate meals together even after we made friends of our own.

However, in addition to the throng of residents on your hall with whom you are bound to forge lifelong rapports, there will also be several adjacent halls with residents of both genders - and temptations will be abundant.

I was lucky enough to escape the life-altering grasp of dormcest (a handy portmanteau of dormitory and incest), but many of my cohorts fell prey to its charms.

The problem became so severe in Monroe Hall that two of my female hall mates performed an extensive study, which culminated in an educational bulletin board to warn of the many possible dangers and a few benefits of engaging in dormcest.

Some of the clearest benefits are proximity, which can make spending time together much easier than making the 15-minute trek from Brown to Yates, and the innate social network of your other hall mates, which can act as either a “spy network” or a set of mutual friends to make those proto-first dates a little less awkward.

The pitfalls of dormcest - or even worse, of hallcest - are numerous and startling. With all those mutual friends, news travels fast, and everyone on your hall will have at his or her disposal what you and your beloved would prefer to keep private. A more serious entanglement with dormcest may lead to sins of the flesh, which can result in a tendency to sexile one’s roommate.

And, let me tell you, no one likes to come back at night to a locked door.

Perhaps the biggest hazards to dormcest are the many results of the unavoidable breakup. Some may choose to leave the hall 10 minutes earlier in the morning to avoid confrontation; others may choose to shower on the floor below. Whatever you try to do, awkwardly unfortunate colloquies are bound to happen, and you will consciously need to hasten along the return to friendship for your own sake.

Wherever students end up living, and whatever they end up doing with their hall mates, they will be confronted right away with a seemingly endless list of rules about drinking, loud noise and hall cleanliness. Sometimes, with all these rules and obligations, it is hard to forget that the Resident Assistants are not omnipotent autocrats.

Last year, the Student Assembly’s Department of Student Rights started an initiative to inform students of their rights in residence halls, rights that many students simply didn’t realize they had.

Perhaps the most important right of students is the right to refuse an R.A. entry into a dorm room. An R.A. cannot enter a student's room without the permission of at least one of the residents, and he or she cannot perform a physical search without either the residents’ permission or a warrant signed by the Vice President of Student Affairs. Evidence gathered under any other circumstances cannot be used in your incrimination.

That being said, most Resident Assistants really do have the best interests of their residents in mind.

He or she will be there to drive those with broken toes to the hospital, get a replacement key for those locked out of their rooms or mediate disputes between feuding roommates. Like mine, he may even be up for driving his residents to the movie theater or playing a midday game of bocce.

Living in a dorm is a truly weird experience: sharing a room with someone you’ve never met, using the same shower and toilet as 20 other people and waiting two hours for a load of laundry that won’t even be completely dry.

But for all of the quirky little details, there are a myriad of things you’ll never want to give up: fun traditions and customs (the 3-am-philosophy debates, the surprise parties for each resident’s birthday, the spontaneous hallway dance parties), dozens of new friends from all over the world and a first taste of independence away from the family.

And when summer comes - when all that connects you to your former neighbors is the occasional Facebook wall post or phone call - you will realize how much you miss each and every nuanced detail about your dorm and the people who lived there.


Jake Robert Nelson is DSJ Opinions Editor and a regular opinions contributor. His opinions do not necessarily represent those of the entire staff.