College Student? How familar are you with the people who live around you in the dorm?

[intelfan11315]

Originally Posted by snooper

I was just wondering if the culture had changed in dorms where texting and the Internet had caused students who lived near each other to be more isololated vs trying to determine if my step son is social himself or not.

My guess is that it's your son, unless he's in the geek dorms. I'm sure even you remember that.. not all dorm halls are the same.

[DSS94]

I have friends in my hall, but that mostly came from orientation and the fact that most people in this dorm are in the same academic program, not just because they live near me. I wouldn't have at any point just talked to the people in the rooms around mine if I hadn't met them through those other things.

[brocco]

Originally Posted by snooper

I was just wondering if the culture had changed in dorms where texting and the Internet had caused students who lived near each other to be more isololated vs trying to determine if my step son is social himself or not.

oh look, another person in your generation trying to blame all the world's problems on technology innovations . i knew this comment was coming

[Finger Laker]

I think a lot will depend on the school to a degree (I think local publics will have more of a pre-formed clique potential ... although even then you'll still have a lot of new people or people looking to step out)

My university had a lot of "geeks", but it was similar to what has been mentioned here.

Freshman year you had some kids who already knew each other and obviously commuter kids weren't living in the dorms ... however, for those of us who were it was kind of a shared experience

Things were broken out by dorm and by floor - I was on the 6th and knew most of the people on my floor, although a lot of my friends were on the 2nd (which was kind of a friendly rival floor) and I hung out more on the 2nd so I formed better relationships with those people and as the year went on was involved more in that social group than my floor

I was lucky with my roomate (lived with him throughout college and he was the best man in my wedding) - freshman year we had the small room with shared kitchen, laundry and showers/bathrooms ...... you saw a lot of people in the halls and interacted a lot, even if it was something as simple as talking over a morning shave

We frequently would have our doors propped open ......everyone had a computer (a long standing requirement) - but it was a social tool .... people would share music, games, talk geek stuff, massive network video games going with people yelling down the halls to each other ..... we had very little drinking in the actual dorms, but would use dorm friends to get into parties outside the dorm

As this was going on you were taking classes, meeting people from other dorms, working on team projects, etc .... the engineering students especially started to form relationships because of all the projects they had to do and their freshman year was on the tougher side of the scale ....... by the end of the year it was a blend of dorm friends and class friends or just plain social friends through a club/activity

Sophomore year we moved into a different dorm - 3/4 of us were friends from the year prior and we had some friends from the year prior across the hall ....... definitely a different dynamic - the 4th guy was great to live with, but definitely had his own social network ...... we had a private living space that was comfortable, private bathroom, larger kitchen space (although anything that could create fires was still in a common area) .... some floor activities, but not so much .... really just passing acquantainces as opposed to friendships

By the 3rd year we were living with who we wanted exclusively in an off campus apartment

[dreamofmonterey]

Not sure what the big deal is here.

A kid in college can do whatever he wants regarding who he socializes with, or not. texting and technology is irrelevant.

Its time to let go.

[springfieldva]

I went to college in the 80's, too. I lived in the dorm and knew many of the people on my hall. We went out together, ate meals together at the dining hall, hung out in each others rooms, watched soaps in the lounge, etc.

There were some real bookworms on our hall, but even those people went out with the group even though they didn't tend to be heavy partiers. I remember it being very inclusive and fun - especially during freshman year when nobody knew anybody else. It could get a little catty at times, but usually not too bad. When I got older, I still lived on campus but I would spend most of my time off campus at my boyfriend's or friends' apartments. In my case, the older I got the smaller (but closer) my circle of friends.

Guys in the dorms, on the other hand, did seem to have their "wingmen" but I don't remember them going out in big groups like the females did. Some would host parties in their dorm rooms and would even have entire floors involved but that sort of thing was generally "strongly discouraged" by the university, so not an easy thing to get away with even back then. Probably even less easy today because the legal drinking age has now risen to 21...

These days, I'm guessing that clubs, sports, fraternities and sororities are probably good ways for students to get to know each other on campus.