Housing: Pretty Good, if a little odd
Written: Sep 18 '00 (Updated Jun 30 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Single rooms
Cons: More run down than a 30k a year school should have
The Bottom Line: A fine place to live for four years.
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| alan's Full Review: Hampshire College |
Hampshire has a lot of different living options, for a small college. You can live in one of two dorms - dakin and merill. Dakin is mostly a first year dorm, but has some really nice features that makes it easy to get around, in it, promoting socializing. Merill is more isolating, and has some cooking appliances, though nothing all that great. Once you get tired of living in a lively hub like Dakin, Merill is a nice place to retreat to, where they still clean your bathrooms and you are still close to the dining commons, but you have less trafic from other halls walking through yours at all times of the day.
Note that over 90 percent of the rooms in both merill and dakin are singles. While they may not be as big as some dorm rooms elsewhere, think about it - you get your own room. It's worth it. Plus, the rooms really are big enough to live comfortably, as long as you don't expect to bring a whole entertainment center of electronics and your own personal furniture.
The other area to live in is the Mods, 3 sets of apartments run by the college that are on campus, though more removed than the dorms. If you are really tired of being near the hub of the campus, this is a good place to move (and most 2nd year and third year students move into the mods). You still get some of the benefits of living on campus (close to your classes, the library, etc), but you get more freedom, and such. The downside is that the mods really are like apartments - you and your house-mates have to cook, clean, and keep the peace between yourself - not always so easy.
Personally I prefer the dorms, but at least at Hampshire you have the choice to do as you wish. The only thing that you really cannot do easily is move off campus, though with the increasing enrollment, it's getting easier to convince them to let you do so.
A few other notes: all dorm residents have to be on the meal plan. I like the food here, but that is not a universal feeling by a long shot. If you live in the mods, you can use the dining commons as often as you want, or not at all if that's how you like it.
Also, all halls and mods have designations, such as quiet, semi-quiet, no smoking, drug free, etc. If you know the type of person you are, you can live with people who have generally the same needs in terms of living condition, which is a lot better than most college's.
For what it's worth, none of the other college's I visited as a prospective student, nor Virginia Tech, where I spent 2 years before coming to Hampshire, had living arrangements nearly as nice as here. But then most of those places made it easy to live off campus, so you didn't have to stick it out if you didn't like dorm life. But chances are much higher you will like Hampshire dorm/mod life, and won't mind on campus living requirement.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
alan
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Member: Alan Robinson
Location: La Jolla, CA
Reviews written: 63
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Cognitive Science PhD student, UC San Diego.
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