The Michigan Daily - nichigandaily.com New Student Edition - 7C 5i1E M LAEI °DO2 5i h1E EO°EM3 It's more than normal to be nervous about moving into the dorms. After all, you'll probably be sharing a tiny, cubicle- like room with someone you've never met from a city you've never heard of. But that's half the fun of it. At no other point in your life will you have to share close quarters with a stranger-turned-best-friend. And regard- less (or perhaps because) of,the Saturday morning messes sprayed across community bathroom doors or the long walks to and from class, living in the dorms is a truly unforgettable experience. BETSY BARBOUR When people talk about where they lived as freshmen, I can never relate to braving the buses of North Campus or the cellblock rooms of Markley. I was assigned to Betsy Barbour, a little-known, all-girls dorm. Despite the fact that most students don't know about Barbour or its next-door neighbor, Helen Newberry, they are two of campus's hid- den treasures. The dorms are across the street from Angell Hall. State Street is at their doorsteps. Plus, many of the fraternity houses, Necto and Scorekeepers are all a block or two away, providing perfect retreats from the grind of freshman year. Barbour even has a cozy cafeteria more reminiscent of a small-town diner than a Big Ten university. The tight-knit atmosphere I enjoyed doesn't make me jealous of the stereotypical freshman experience my classmates had. This fall, I'm moving into my house for senior year with three girls who were also "unfortunately" placed in Barbour as freshmen. - Lisa Gentile .................................... ......... EAST QUAD East Quad has a reputation that precedes it. Because it's primarily composed of Residential College students, many people will tell you it's a glorified hippie commune, a place whereall the students have long hair, wear flannel and recite Keats to each other in the courtyard. Maybe, but that's not all there is. We all know stereotypes exist for a reason, and I'm not about to say otherwise. My freshman year, I was greeted by a student who had turned his single into a pirate cove, wore a Captain Hook jacket and wrote on his door: "If the door's ajar, come on in, arrrggghh." I didn't bother to see if he had a hook-for a hand. But it was liberating to live among people who didn't feel they had to fit in with what's generally considered "normal" on campus. Some of them are unquestionably bizarre, but most are simply eccentric. In other words, your life will be a hell of a lot more interesting living in East Quad than anywhere else. - Brandon Conradis . .. .. .. . .. ... . ... . ... . .. ... .. .. .. .. . .. .. . .. .. BURSLEY/BAITS Whenthe University placed me in Baits, my friends were sympathetic. They watched me chase the bus after late a cappella rehearsals and wor- ried when I walked rather than rode the last.Saturdaybus, appropriately dubbed the Vomit Comet. Their concern only grew when I chose to live on North Campus again the next year. My classes mayhave been a 15-minute bus ride away,butthat was part - of the attraction. I could separate my home life from my school life, and Baits became home - and a comfortable one, at that. With a two-room suite and a bathroom shared with just three others, I didn't miss the cramped accommodations of Orientation. And while it was often quiet amidst the trees and Engineering students, I certainly didn't mind dur- ing exams. Whether meeting friends for a huge Bursley brunch or sledding on smug- " gled trays, North Campus is a greatplace for unique campus experiences. But don't live there for more than a year - after that, you start to feel like you're on the outside of a Central Campus inside joke. S- Emmarie Huetteman Wh ethrs hos o r ore)t ie nMrhBooyu e " sYo'lgttecrosiqiis "Doyuralydesu addikte nFiay"(e. -t " : z "- C x5 - 52 - 0 ,sn MARTHA COOK Whether you choose (or are forced) to live in Martha Cook, your new -residence guarantees you'll have a conversation starter on campus. You'll get the curious inquiries. - "Do you really dress up and drink tea on Friday?" (Yes.) "Do you have old-fashioned, sit-down dinners?" (Sometimes.) "Are boys allowed?" (Yes, at times - escorted like all guests, of course.) Shrug them off - in 50 years, you'll laugh about it at Alumni Tea. And - for now, you'll love living in a building with architecture straight out of Harry Potter and with the best location on campus - right across from - the Undergraduate Library (UGLi for short). Take pride in the headshakes you'll get at your first frat party. It'll only take you,five minutes to walk home instead of trudging back to the Hill " or riding the bus to North Campus. You'll have your owngarden, tennis court and play on a one-of-a-kind 1913 Steinway piano. Just try to stay on the headmistress's good side. (I didn't.) - Lindsey Ungar MARY MARKLEY HALL Mary Markley Hall is truly a multi-purpose building. It's a 100-degree sauna during Welcome Week. It's the party dorm where you often can't walk through the lobby without seeing at least one drunk, stumbling freshman. It's home to more than 1,000 college students, many suffering from illnesses you're sure to catch. The excitement of not being placed on North Campus will soon pass - you'll learn that the 15-minute walk to class is still brutal. And your love of the Markley cafeteria food will get old fast. But you'll quickly become accustomed to the massive amount of students at Michigan, as you'll soon see many familiar Markley faces around campus (and on Facebook.) Make sure to have several pairs of flip-flops for the bathroom, wash your hands regularly and don't become overly frustrated when all you can say on your cell phone is, "Can you hear me now?" Never again in your life will you get to see such great walks of shame on Saturday and Sunday mornings. And when else willyou be able to live with all of your closest friends in one building? Markley - the secret envy of every freshman in the other dorms. -AllieFoster THE OTHER DORMS ON THE HILL When I first got my freshman housing assignment, I thought there'd been a mistake. I had requested to live on the Hill, and I thought thrat had meant I would get to live in Markley, where most of my fun friends from Orientation were assigned. So, understandably, I was disappointed when I found out three more dorms were located on the Hill - Couzens, Mosher-Jordan and Alice Isloyd: I was placed in-eesuzerns at term not dominated byreshmenmike Markey, which made me nervous to move in. I learned that sure, living on the Hill is a pain in the winter. I'll never miss walking through the wind tunnel on the Couzens Bridge. Still, there's something special about Couzens that makes upperclass- men stay. Maybe it's the Community Scholars Program, the close prox- imity to the CCRB or even just a homey feel - wide, carpeted halls and spacious rooms feel a lot different than Markley's closet-sized doubles. And while I'm looking forward to three years spent closer to South Uni- versity and State Street, I might sometimes miss that long, peaceful walk past Palmer Field to my first home in Ann Arbor. - Nicole Auerbach SOUTH/WEST QUAD Residents of West Quad's nine houses are disconnected, both physi- cally and in spirit - the halls are only connected on the ground floor and filled with student-athletes who seem to only use it as a place to sleep. Its main hall leads to Cambridge House - a silent hotel-turned- dorm for the rich - and the Union, which West Quad residents can easily visit for late-night eating, socializing or ATM transactions on the way to class. In contrast, Honors-student-dominated South Quad bustles with study sessions and hall-organized activities that the residents actu- ally enjoy attending, like dodgeball, Casino Night and Hall Olympics. And last year, South Quad produced two t-shirts: One that was sexually offensive ("Superman That Ho!") and a second, politically correct ver- sion promoted by the apologetic Hall Council. And like West Quad, its central location on campus is convenient. But South Quad isn't all neighborly fun and games. My friend Ange- la was walking down the hallway one day in search of the source of a strange smell, which turned out to be a bag of human feces hanging from a doorknob. She knocked on the door, but no one was home. If you still can't decide, you can choose where your loyalties lie based on which hall might keep you the safest. The two historical- ly face off in an annual snowball fight that has been known to turn bloody and fierce, and former South Quad resident Ian Winklestern (a self-described "Squadder") explains it like this: "It's athletes vs. Hon- ors kids, so it's kind of no contest right there." - Sara Lynne Thelen If I DINING and DELIVERY UNTIL 4am EVERYDAY!! JOBS!!! Fall Term Apply now at the Law Library - - non-Law Students - Law Students SS.I. Students Minimum pay is $9.00 per hour! Apply at the hiring table outside room S-180 in the Law Library's underground addition. w "l into the 60s through the2's century door ' ua ' 0 0. 0 - - 0 Herb David Guitar Studio NotJust Guitars - lessons, Repairs, Books 8 Accessories - Since i6qb 302 east liberty street ann arbor mi 48104 toll free: 1.877.665.8001 www.herbdavidguitarstudio.com