Enjoy the photo Tara and I took in front of the building the night before I left:)
Hello Everyone and welcome back to my blog. Two weeks ago I moved out of my freshman dorm:(
This blog has been a long time coming and I appreciate everyone for being so patient. It was a hard one for me to think about because as I am typing this right now, I am really missing my time there.
While everyone who reads my blog goes to my school, in the case you don’t, I go to The University of Minnesota and we aren’t even required to live in dorms freshman year but obviously to stay true to the college experience, 95% of students do and while other schools in Minnesota might require a 2 year dorm live in, we don’t and even though that sounds amazing to many people, it’s also kinda depressing because while we don’t appreciate the dorms because of the small space, roommates, communal bathrooms, etc we have to understand how convenient it truly is. As a person who dreaded living in a dorm, I can’t tell you how appreciative I am that I got to.
You get to basically live with people you will end up being friends with, its nice to just go downstairs to grab food made for you, and even if the food isn’t the greatest, especially going to school here, it’s still super nice and if you wanted to go visit a friend in the building all it takes is some stairs or an elevator. Once you live in different places, it’s not as accessible anymore to see your friends.
I don’t speak for everyone’s experiences because you might not feel the same way as what I’m saying but for the sake of this, just follow along.
For me I lived in Middlebrook Hall and the UMN has 3 Campuses: West Bank, East Bank, St Paul. While St Paul is the farthest, West Bank is on the other side of the river and is a far secluded place away from my friends who live in East Bank, and before starting college I was the only one in West Bank with my roommate. I remembered crying because I had to live so far from everyone but now I realized how truly grateful i really am. I hated myself for doing my housing application so late and blamed myself for two weeks.
I remembered reading on reddit about Middlebrook and people would either really love it or hate it, which made my moving in more unsettling because I wanted a clear answer but something I’ve always learned about when people would talk college is that it’s all what you make of it and sometimes hearing that so often can get really annoying but they’re so right.
After spending a few weeks trying to get out of living in Middlebrook I was constantly reaching out to people on Instagram to switch and going out of my way to figure out other options. I remembered contacting a total of 60 people and it didn’t work out. I eventually accepted the fact that I was going to be living in Middlebrook but it was really tough because all of my friends were living in Superblock and they were talking about how fun they were going to have together and that I was living so far that I felt like I wasn’t going to be apart of all that.
Eventually learn that the place you live does not determine how fun your college experience is going to be because at the end of the day the place you live is truly just somewhere you sleep and if you don’t enjoy it just know you’re only there for as long as you would like.
When it came to move-in day I remember loading my stuff into the move in carts and smelling that horrendous sewer smell. It was such a distinct smell that everyone called it the Middlebrook smell and it was also kind of embarrassing. I was super thankful for the elevators and I found that living in Middlebrook was really unique because it was the tallest building and had the most people living in it so I would hope that eventually with so many people I could make all these new friends.
Luckily for me I had started to realize a lot of the people I met during the summer time on those Instagram or Facebook groups they all got put into Middlebrook as well and I started to realize that people who were put in Middlebrook either really wanted to be in Middlebrook or didn’t at all and got stuck there because of how late they filled their housing. I myself thought that I filled the form early but Tip to future college students: fill it as soon as possible because truly it can never be too soon.
Once I’d settled all of my stuff in my parents had left and I officially became a college student. I remembered some of my friends were also moving in that day and once everyone had settled in, Caleb and Shria came into my room and then spent their first meal at Middlebrook which was not good by the way. We were sitting in my room not knowing what to do with ourselves because it truly felt like we were at summer camp and not at school. We tried to find ways to kill time and after a bit we started to meet up with some other friends and decided to go over to Superblock.
That was also the day I actually learned how to use the buses because when you live in West Bank using the bus is your best friend and what and while I tried to figure it out throughout the summer it’s still was very confusing to me but that day we went over to super block and I remembered Zoe, Della, and I tried to take the bus back but it turns out we took the wrong bus and it took us to Saint Paul. That is when I learned that the campus connector is different than the circulators. That was also the first and last time that I stepped foot on the St. Paul campus but hopefully I’ll get to visit that in the future.
After getting back to Middlebrook, I parted ways with Zoe and Della but that entire day I was forcing myself to branch out and meet new people but it’s a lot easier said than done but for me I’m a person that wanted genuine friendships, not the ones where I meet them at welcome week and never speak to them again. Sadly I did end up losing contact with most of the people I met during welcome week but I learned everything happens for a reason and it was nothing to dwell over.
Later that night luckily for me I got a message from my floor group me once I got back into my room and a guy had texted on there asking if anyone wanted to come in and play Mario Kart and that their room was going go be open all night. Shoutout To Blake and Joe:)
On a whim I decided to go into the room and I met two guys from The Madison area … two ridiculously tall guys and that night I had also met Libby and soon after those two guys and the rest of our floor became friends and thats what started my Middlebrook journey.
Our floor would get along really well and we did a lot of things together but as time would pass I got really busy so I wasn’t able to hang out with the people on my floor much but I was so glad because whenever I could hang out with them it felt like nothing had changed and that’s what made that dorm building so special.
Almost every single floor has their own little community, their own friend group, and the people that you would see together all the time we’re always on the same floor or somewhere in Middlebrook. Throughout the year I got to go on each floor and see what type of community they had to offer and all the fun people that came with it and it made me really thankful for once that I was put so far away from everybody because we were all forced to be in a place that no one wanted to be in because of that we are collectively bonded over it.
It breaks my heart that it will no longer be as simple as just taking the elevator up and down to go visit a friend. Next year I am moving into my sorority house and my friends are living in apartments all over campus. While it shouldn't be too bad it just doesn't feel the same without having them so close to me. To me I consider this a very big step in my life because after freshman year of college things are gonna go by very quick. The excitement that we all once had when we first started college was one of the best feelings I’d ever had.
I'm gonna miss taking the bus late at night and going back to Middlebrook with my friends, going down to the dining hall and eating shitty food, going out with people from every floor, studying in the study lounge is super late at night, DoorDashing food at 2 am, staying up all night and hanging out with friends, it was these moments that made living life in college so bearable and gave us something to look forward to during the tough times. I will truly miss all the memories that I made living in the dorm, specifically my dorm. It's a shame that I know so many people who had moved out because they didn't give this dorm a chance.
Middlebrook gets a lot of hate because of how far it is from other dorms and coming from someone who didn't wanna live here at all, I am so glad that I lived there and not anywhere else. At the end of the day maybe I just got lucky and the people that I was stuck with during my time here at Middlebrook was all fate or luck, but nonetheless college is really what you make of it. It really doesn’t matter where you live because any place will always be full of memories.
As I am posting this, it has been two weeks since I moved out of my dorm. I had gone through around and looked all throughout the building and reminisced all the memories and the fun spots that I used to spend my time at. It feels shocking to me that I will never step foot back into the dorm unless I know someone that lives in there. The thing you realize with college is that home is temporary. Whether that's your home back in your hometown, the place that you're living during the school year, or even the friends. I met so many friends in the beginning of welcome week that I rarely talk to now and while that can be pretty depressing, I think everything does happens for a reason and all the ones that stayed being friends with me are the ones who have stuck through it with me overall and that to me is a bigger deal than anything else. It sucks though because truly no matter where you live it will always change.
In conclusion to whoever is reading this right now, whether you lived in Middlebrook, a person that lived in a different dorm that often came to Middlebrook, an upper classmen, or someone younger than me, just know that everything you have in college is what you make of it. I took a shitty dorm and made it into something that is truly going to be one of my favorite places on campus, Make a bunch of friends in the process. Take advantage of everything that you have around you because you never know when it's gonna end. Especially in college when nothing is ever permanent because it's four years that go by very quick. So in the meantime, cherish your friends, check in on them and continue making some of the best memories in your college years. And remember, just because the situation seems shitty doesn’t mean it needs to be, take it from me.
- Sincerely, Resident of 422 in Middlebrook:)
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