A previous review stated that the Cate & Honors dorms do not have air-conditioning. In fact, most of Cate and all of the Honors House is air-conditioned. Also, I'm not quite sure if the Honors House has windows that open; it seems like they just have plain ones like the towers.

Otherwise, their review is fairly accurate. I lived in Couch Tower, a virtual twin of Walker Tower, for the last two years. The first year, our A/C was similarly challenging; once it leaked all over the floor, it regularly over-heated or over-chilled (mostly over-heated.)

This last year, my air-conditioning was fine, but I had the most annoying suitemates known to man. All of their friends came over, day and night, to hang out and laugh and watch stupid TV all day. Even worse, they never cleaned the bathroom despite an agreement that we would share the chores. Anyway, that really has nothing to do with OU.

Whenever we had problems with plumbing or climate control, however, I could generally get help from maintenance. They were courteous and on-call at virtually any hour of the day - at my beckon call when I needed the bathtub drain unplugged!

Another thing: Couch Tower seems to have a bad reputation as being "the ghetto" of OU dorms, but I don't really see how they can say that. Most rooms in Couch that I've witnessed are carpeted and clean. Most rooms in Walker and Adams seemed dark, smallish, and had no carpeting.

I think that Adams has an advantage as far as community goes, however, because they are more contained in each individual tower, and therefore they get to know each other easier. I think my environment seemed fairly unfriendly too because I lived in a Greek hall. As a non-Greek, I seemed to get the cold shoulder. And since most of the girls were Greek, (and freshmen Greek girls for that matter, most of whom are utterly preoccupied with their inane social lives,) they were all too busy to participate in our little hall activities, and we'd always have a weak turnout for everything.

The food at OU is pretty good, as some have pointed out. They have to save money so the quality may not always be "just like home", but the food director, Dave, tries to respond to student feedback in a kind and timely fashion with his "Kitchen Comments" booklets that are published weekly, and the special meals around holidays can be amazing, with *real* cheesecake and fancy meats and live entertainment. The cafeteria even has its own resident chef, Chef Billy, who hails from California. He concocts some sort of special meal every lunch and dinner during the week. The stir-fry bar, made-to-order omelets, waffle bar, and Freshen's yogurt are also popular options in the cafeteria.

The dorms have been convenient for the last two years since they're close to campus and whatnot, but I've missed having a kitchen since I love to cook. (I think certain colleges have kitchens accessible to all dorm residents but it's not like that at OU.) Only the International floor seems to have a kitchen. Plus, I have had enough of suitemates who never clean their share. I'm glad to be moving to an off-campus apartment in the fall. :)



Recommended: Yes