<p>I’m debating on whether or not to apply for “quiet living areas” or normal dorms. I’m an only child and I’m not really used to that much noise, I think I’d get sort of annoyed… Would living in a quiet area dorm be super boring? I don’t want to just be stuck in my dorm room with no friends or something either.</p>
<p>“Quiet Living Areas: The C3 floor of Mudge House, Welch House and all university-operated apartments in the Oakland Community offer quiet living. Quiet living provides an assurance to all residents in these buildings, and to all residents in the surrounding area, that resident students will act with the highest degree of common courtesy and respect for others in maintaining a particularly quiet and unobtrusive environment. This designation includes a provision for an extension of the universitys current quiet hours policy to 24 hours. As such, residents will be responsible for ensuring that the noise generated within their apartments or residence hall room is not audible at a distance of ten feet from their apartment or residence hall room.”</p>
<p>That is the description for quiet living dorms… Has anyone lived in a quiet living dorm and has any comments?</p>
<p>^ what bco said. I’d heavily advise against picking the quiet floors. They suck massively and generally no one wants to live on/visit C3 because everyone agrees that the ‘boring people’ live there. Usually every floor has some activity going on if you visit it during the day, but walking down C3 is like walking through a tomb.</p>
<p>I knew two guys from Welch and it was very small…but they met their friends elsewhere. They liked knowing that where they slept/lived was quiet. Both guys were very social and involved on campus…but prefered the living arrangement.</p>
<p>@Kate
Where on the housing application would someone picking Mudge have had the oppt to pick the “quiet floor”…seems like you’d get stuck there without really knowing that had happened to you if you selected C3?</p>
<p>There was an option last year, I don’t remember much about where it was because all I knew was that the quiet floor was the last place I wanted to be. But I know a few kids who definitely chose to be there - my current roommate’s former roommate was one of them – so it’s definitely possible. (She applied for a room change mid-semester and asked to be in our quad when one of my quadmates left the school.) It seems like there are more available quiet-floor rooms than there are quiet-floor requesters, so there are also kids on the quiet floor who did NOT ask to be there, and they don’t always stay quiet, haha.</p>
<p>I would tell you how this year but I don’t have access to a freshman housing form, since I no longer have a NTIA page :)</p>
<p>Oh – also I was thinking about applying to get into Stever house… Since the rooms are smaller and the lounges are nice, I figure most people will socialize in the lounges as opposed to rooms… Best of both worlds – is this a correct assumption or am I completely wrong?</p>
<p>The tour guides do highlight the wonderful lounges at Stever. I must admit…they were hopping the time I visited them in 2007-- and some people had even moved their desk furniture with their desktop computers into the lounge (no way to lock your stuff-- so clearly a trusting community-- bizarre choice if you ask me)…the rooms were small…</p>
<p>Although people are in the lounges most of the time, one of the downsides of Stever being a green dorm is that the walls are… thin. Sound travels well. It’s not exactly what I’d call a quiet dorm :/</p>
<p>Hey Swingset – I think I have some similar views on my room as you do…but i’m not sure what dorm to select…
Sounds like you want a place to live that is “private”- but you are also a social person. I’m outgoing, have lots of friends - not a hermit–but I want room to be quiet-not the floor hang-out. When the door closes-- I want to shut everything out–…
I want to meet lots of people-- but I want my room to be my retreat – …when I’m in my room, I think (but of course this can change), i want to be able to kick back, relax, sleep uninterupted and not deal with a flurry of people in and out all the time. I don’t think that makes me a hermit at all-- my room is going to be my new home…
I’m not sure if that means I should avoid the larger dorms – or just make sure I try to find a roommate that feels that way about our room and still head to a large dorm.
The hill has lots of small dorms-- but it seems like I’d meet fewer people if I selected welch, or henderson.
If I go with mudge quiet floor-- I still have all the mudge lounges to meet everyone…?</p>
<p>Kate and other STUDENTs… does that make sense-- ?
Why is so gloomy on C4–?</p>
<p>Swingset- what’s your major-- maybe we would be a good fit…I’m CS and hope to double with ECE eventually…
I was thinking mudge or welch-- and once I learned about the mudge quiet floor that sounds kind of interesting- but want to hear more from kate on why it seems so gloomy. I’m a bit messy–but not dirty… I do want the bathroom to stay clean (my roomie at pre-school was disgusting!!!–dirty underwear everywhere…and it was unclear who was the person missing the toilet every morning - there were four of us to that bathroom and my parents were ROFL when they heard that I bought a spray bottle of lysol for the sink-- they didn’t know I could care about clean bathrooms! Neither did i-- but I don’t want to share a bathroom with a stranger ever again that is that disgusting in the bathroom).</p>
<p>In E-tower at least, when I shut the door, there’s no sound from the hall. It could very well just be me being a deep sleeper though… i’ve had girls who swear they bang on the door for 10 minutes and i don’t hear a thing.</p>
<p>I really can’t stress enough that you should consider one of the more popular dorms… if you need silence to work then pick a room in Gates, or experience the dearth of sound that is the third floor of Hunt. Or, if you really want to work somewhere morbid, go visit the Cyert cluster after midnight.</p>
<p>But when you’re in your dorm, there’s really nothing better than hanging out. And idk, if people ever bother you with too much sound there a bunch of ways to go about getting them to be quiet. i prefer the classic “shut the f up”</p>
<p>^ Again, what bco said. Pick a popular dorm that isn’t Stever. Donner, Mudge, or Morewood E. Then shut the door and you’ll find you have plenty of silence. Campus is also mostly open 24/7, except for the library closing on weekends, so you’ll have no shortage of quiet places to go to study.</p>
<p>Even living in a quad, the most trouble I’ve ever had with sound was the piano that’s directly underneath my room. But, like bco said, “Shut the f up, I’m studying” seems to work wonderfully to solve that problem.</p>
<p>All the freshman dorms seem to be about equally mellow as far as I can tell. I mean, if you’re a girl, I guess Mcgill would be an obvious choice because it’s all-female… but the girls I know in Mcgill only hang out with other women, so there goes your diverse social life. If you pick Mudge C3 and you really push to meet people off your floor, you probably won’t have a problem with social life. Just be aware that your floormates will be as exciting as watching grass grow, and those who are more exciting will want to get out of C3 as fast as they can (IE transfer rooms).</p>
<p>Hope you don’t mind my joining this discussion as my son is also thinking of these 3 dorms. Maybe DS and CMUGUY2014 can discuss this on FB!! He’s a Physics major in MCS hoping to either transfer into CIT or double major in MechE!
completelykate- Donner, Mudge, or Morewood E. -good socially but also respectful fellow students??</p>
<p>All the dorms seem pretty respectful of quiet hours and of fellow students, I’d say. I’ve never had a situation where the people next door were too crazy to listen to us when we needed to study or something, and in turn we’ll gladly turn down our music/kick people out if our room’s too loud and they need peace & quiet.</p>
<p>Talking to many CMU and non-CMU students/parents alike for years, I’ve heard lots of great and not-so-great roommate stories-- I think it’s fair to say that you can always find an isolated jack-ass anywhere-- not unique to CMU - … I honestly feel this much less likely at CMU simply b/c the students here are very serious about their studies. CMU enforces quiet hours during final exam week. On a regular basis, People will turn down the music, close the doors etc if requested-- it’s not animal house on the dorm floors anywhere – it’s CMU. Maybe at Pitt down the street…smile. The dorms however clearly differ in flavor - smaller dorms just don’t “rock” the same way as a large dorm doews-- fewer people --less noise by default - fewer people on the floor, over and under you…?</p>
<p>There should be no inherent differences between the types of people that cluster into the three large dorms–CMU students are diverse in their interests- and that diversity is exhibited in all the dorms. the only expected differences are in the communal vs. private bathrooms, and that Donner and Mudge have the on-site weeknight tutoring whereas Mudge does not. Morewood has on site food, Donner close to onsite food. </p>
<p>I am still also truly puzzled why Kate and BCO said that the people who selected quiet roooms/floors were so “odd” (After your posts, I have formed this picture in my mind of a floor full of nerdy-online gamers-who have never dated or don’t wash regularly and sit indoors 24/7)… but thanks for your very strongly-to-be-considered tips-- I read swingset and cmuguy’s comments as just wanting to have a quiet place to sleep and chill-- but neither sounded like a hermit…I’ll trust your judgment and pass that along to my S-- who isn’t a CC reader-- but he was thinking about Mudge or Morewood - I wonder how he would feel if he was placed on the quiet floor even if he didn’t request it? But if he got “stuck” there- it would be 1000x better than being at Oakland apts. – that would be awful! Thanks for continued good tips!</p>
<p>I ALSO posted this elsewhere - want to highlight again - b/c no one should have false hopes about Mudge …
EDs cannot always pull in RDs… According to housing, RDs with late deposit dates cannot bump those with significantly sooner deposit dates to get into better rooms. As I noted in a post a while back, students at our high school had requested each other but were unpleasantly surprised to learn they hadn’t been paired. Housing told them very clearly – that roomie pairs had to have a very close proximity in the dates of deposit to be placed together …so an ED most certainly cannot pull in anyone depositing in the last few days.
An RD pulled in by and ED cannot bump another ED for sure. In 2008, the housing group was literally filling spots and making decisions on housing by processing 2-3 deposit dates per day-- over a two week period they sent out housing confirmation to 1500+ students , it is easy to see why it goes in order. So the person processing would on Monday have processed all ED, Tuesday March 28, 29, Wednesay thru April 3, etc… so that if an April 3 was paired with an April 23-- the 23rd would not get paired in the choice dorm but held over until the person processed that date-- upwards of 600-700 people in front on the housing queue and they did not get bumped by the pull in.</p>
<p>With 100% certainty - -if as of today you have NOT already paid your deposit – you are not going to be living in Mudge or Morewood even if requested by an ED.
With 100% certainty- -if you paid your deposit April 30, May 1-- you are in Oakland apartments (unless you are disabled) or have a parent who is willing to get on the phone and be an exceedingly complaining parent…and probably not even then.</p>
<p>Likewise EDs should not be posting that they can pull-inanyone into their room from the RD pool-- it’s not true…and the ED should best be looking for a potential roomie from the ED pool – or may end up with someone they didn’t pick - that’s fine too- but it will be a surprise-- and if that’s not the intent-- then don’t pair up with someone who placed a late deposit either.</p>
<p>What happens if you’re accepted off the waiting list? Are you basically stuck with whatever terrible place is left after everyone else has their choice?</p>
<p>There are no terrible dorms or apartments-- each has advantages and disadvantages.</p>
<p>If you’re accepted off the wait list after all ED and RD are placed, you might actually get lucky and be placed into a vacancy left by an upper classman in Resnick who doesn’t return or lives off campus.</p>
<p>Please everyone- there’s nothing wrong with any dorms-- they are all tons nicer than many of those in other schools and especially those you might find in some large state universities.</p>