Carl Becker vs. Hans Bethe

faustarp
Wed, 02 Mar 2011 21:58:21 +0000

I think all five of the new houses have a hotel-ish feel. I would also say that their rooms are all about the same size. however, I have limited experience with them, so others may have more specifics to offer.
in Becker, the dining and laundry are right in the middle between the two wings (like if it were an H, they would be found in the horizontal line.) in Bethe, this is also the case with dining, but I am not sure where the laundry is located (it’s not as close to the dining as it is with Becker, I think it’s fair to say.)
I think the quantity of food for a given lunch or dinner is pretty consistent among the different houses. for breakfasts, some houses have more elaborate breakfasts than others. also, some houses have lunch and others do not, which is new as of ~2 years ago due to budget constraints. the trouble is that, so far as I know, there is now way to know ahead of time which houses will have which amenities each year. I know that Alice Cook at the full breakfast last year, and Flora Rose has it this year, so I guess it could go to either Bethe or Becker next year. your freshman meal plan allows you to eat in any west campus dining hall besides on Wednesday evenings, so you could check them out yourself sometime before the housing lottery!
one other thing: if you liked Balch, you might consider living in one of the gothics, since some of them have quite large rooms. unfortunately you’ll have to use a floorplan to find out exactly which ones, since I haven’t investigated all of them, AND since smaller and larger rooms are sort of mixed up in the haphazard way that those 1920s builders seem to have been fond of. for some reason (maybe since they were intended for male students?!) the gothics don’t quite have the same interior beauty of Balch, but I would say that the general old atmosphere vs. new amenities ratio is about the same.