Dorm Sweet Dorm: A Love Letter to my First Year Dorm Experience

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UCD chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

When it comes to my first year dorm experience, I think it’s safe to say I lucked out. As a high school senior, I spent hours wondering what my future dorm would look like; would I end up in a double or triple? Are communal bathrooms really as bad as people make them out to be? What if I don’t get along with my roommate? 

Preparing for dorm living creates a lot of mixed emotions because on one hand, these worries plagued my mind. On the other hand, I excitedly watched dorm hauls on Tiktok and scrolled Pinterest for hours for dorm inspiration. I don’t want to say I had the perfect dorm experience because nothing is ever perfect but I think I can say I got pretty damn close to it. 

Living in a double

Starting off strong, I felt like God’s favorite when I found out I’d be living in a double. There are plenty of reasons that someone might want a triple over a double; such as the financial cost of a double over a triple, or having a trio you really want to room with. Neither of these situations applied to me and I spent the entire Summer hoping for a double because of how spacious they are. I had a spacious closet, plenty of room under my bed and around the room for storage, and wall to wall windows. This spacious layout of the room made it so much easier for my dorm to feel like a room and not just a dorm, but more on that later. 

Perfect Location

Original photo by Hadlie Ward

Secondly, I lived in Segundo, one of the three housing areas for freshmen. In my opinion, Segundo gets a bad rep. Everyone says it’s too far from the main campus (hello? Cuarto exists) or that it’s outdated, which is technically true when you compare it to Tercero, however, this never bothered me. Living in Segundo meant living in a double rather than Tercero where triples are most common. As an avid biker, Segundo’s distance from my classes was never an issue and I actually liked how out of the way it felt in comparison to Tercero. Because Tercero is more centrally located, students from all three residence areas will eat meals at its dining hall depending on their class schedule. With Segundo on the other hand, you kind of have to go out of your way to eat there which means you can always count on having a relatively chill dining experience. 

Additionally, with the warmer weather brought on by Spring quarter, I’ve loved sunbathing before class or stanning (studying + tanning = stanning) and Segundo has a large manicured lawn perfect for this. Although, during Winter quarter, I spent more time in my room to avoid the chilly Davis days and occasional torrential rain. 

The Roommate Situation

My roommate and I have a somewhat unconventional story. It all started on Aggie Day, or rather the short 3 hours of Aggie Day that I attended because I felt particularly indifferent about seeing all the different events on campus. As I wrapped up my visit at the Involvement Fair, some girl came up to me and asked if I was also recently accepted. I was kind of caught off guard and held this conversation for about five minutes before we exchanged contact information and parted ways. We texted for about a week, realized we had similar interests and habits, and decided to room together. 

We only spoke a few times over the Summer to coordinate move-in and indicate who would be bringing communal items. So once we got to Davis, we both felt like we hardly knew each other. We quickly became good friends and made countless memories within the first two weeks of knowing each other! These are memories we still reminisce on to this day. 

Whether it’s our late night AMPM runs, staying up until 4am talking and laughing (which we did a lot of the first month of school), I’ve enjoyed every moment I’ve spent with her and can’t wait to see what our first year of living off campus together has in store for us.

Leave a Message 

The part of my dorm I’ll miss the most is the famous quote wall. Around Thanksgiving, my roommate bought a huge roll of butcher paper to make hand turkeys and she decided to use the remaining paper to make a Quote Wall. Over the course of the year, we’ve added silly quotes and funny moments to the wall as a way of appreciating these moments. Although it’s mostly something we do for fun, it serves as a reminder to cherish the small, sometimes seemingly insignificant moments. 

I’m so incredibly grateful for the joyous dorm experience I had, even if there were moments where I dreaded using the communal showers or talked about how I couldn’t wait to live off campus. However, the majority of freshmen dorm life feels like such a unique experience that won’t ever really be replicated. As I look ahead to the next few years of living off campus, dorm life will always have a special place in my heart.