The process of choosing a dorm room as a freshman can be a difficult task because all you have to go on is a brief description on Moravian’s website. You have no clue which dorms have air conditioning or which ones get the rowdiest on the weekends. These are the things you don’t find out until you actually live in the dorms. So, you pick a couple of options and hope for the best. Then you get your housing assignment, and you don’t know if your first dorm experience will be your favorite or one you won’t like it at all. This semester I had the privilege of living in two dorms and here is what I have learned.  

South Campus

Main Hall is a beautiful, old-fashioned building on South Campus, but like everything it has its pros and cons. Each of the rooms has a different view of the campus and they’re all pleasing to the eye. The rooms are huge compared to those in the other dormitories and most of them have walk-in closets. Main Hall is an all-girls’ dorm, which has its perks, such as being cleaner and better-smelling. The dorm is also quiet every day of the week, so you won’t be up until two in the morning because people are yelling in the halls. 

However, Main Hall is not air-conditioned and gets uncomfortably warm at the beginning of the year, and if like me, you have the pleasure of living on the fourth floor you have to climb up 73 stairs to get to your room. This will force you to look forward to the winter months, until you learn that there is heat but you can’t control the temperature, so your room might  be even hotter than it was in the summer.

When living on South Campus you get familiar with the shuttle schedule quickly, whether it’s running early in the morning or late at night. You also learn that there is no breakfast served on South Campus, so that means you have to haul yourself out of bed even earlier to get breakfast.

North Campus

The second semester of my freshman year I had the fortune of being able to move into Rau-Hassler, which is very different from Main Hall. The building is more modern and co-ed.

One perk of living on North Campus is that everything is more accessible. This means that you don’t have to take the shuttle late at night after staying out with your friends and you can grab breakfast before your 7:30 class and not have to wake up at the crack of dawn.

Rau-Hassler was recently renovated and now has air conditioning and heat that you can control. This means you can be comfortable year-round and it won’t feel like it’s August when it’s actually December.

The negatives about the dorms is that they are co-ed, so they tend to be louder and less clean, especially on the weekends. The worst things I’ve experienced so far are no paper towels, an overflowing garbage can, and occasionally screaming or loud music.

Although the rooms are smaller than those in Main Hall, you can have your bed lofted to provide a significant amount of space to store your belongings.   

Even though I wasn’t happy with my dorm experience first semester, it taught me that I hate stairs, that I take air conditioning for granted, and that I would prefer living on North Campus, when given the choice. If you’re really not happy with your room assignment, there is always the chance to move.