Quad

Can you tell me which floors are for freshmen in Quad and how to tell which are doubles or triples? Also, can students bring their own coffee maker in their room? Thanks.

rachelblacker Leave a comment

Quad is very hard to describe exactly where freshmen are and which rooms are triples/doubles. Generally speaking, freshmen will not be housed on the third floor. Most of the rooms on the third floor are singles for upperclassmen. There are a few exceptions for corner buildings like Roebling. It’s also a toss-up on which rooms are triples/doubles. You can kind of look at square footage, but sometimes that doesn’t mean much either. Sorry this isn’t very helpful. I don’t want to mislead you.

You can bring almost any small appliance that you want, the kicker is that it needs to have an automatic shut-off for fire prevention.

I want to live in a pretty social dorm that has non-communal bathrooms, (meaning at most 2 rooms per bathroom), not too far from classes, and mixed gender. Which is the best dorm for me?

rachelblacker Leave a comment

All dorms are mixed gender.

The Quad is closest to classes. Hall, Cary, Barton, Bray, Crockett, and Nason follow closely in that order (they’re all within about 100 yards of one another). BARH would be the farthest.

Quad and Barton are the only ones for freshmen that have non-communal bathrooms.

So, it sounds like you want to live in Quad… but do some of your own research. I’m not a match-making service.

What is the temperature like in each building? Are there any that are especially hot or especially cold? As someone who can’t stand the heat, are there any dorms that I should try to avoid living in? Thanks!

rachelblacker Leave a comment

Barton and Quad have central air conditioning. In Barton, each room has a thermostat and in the Quad, you control the temperature and amount of heat/AC. It’s really only hot outside for a few weeks in the early fall and a few weeks in the late spring (if even).

From what I’ve heard, the other freshmen five (Hall, Crockett, Cary, Bray, and Nason) are heated the same – some people say they are overheated/hot, so maybe avoid those. They also have no central AC.

So I’m trying to figure out my housing preference, but I guess I’m not clear on a few things. 1) For suite style-the bathrooms: how many people share that bathroom, 3 (for one room) or was it (6 for 2 rooms)? In that bathroom, is there only one shower, toilet, etc? Or multiple, in in the bathroom? 2) If I decide to go for suite style, and if a roomate is in the suite style bathroom, am I still allowed to use the floor bathroom? And another thing: I heard there are printing rooms in the housing itself, so I wouldn’t have to walk to the computer lab, is that the case for all housing: do all of them have that? There seems to be no facebook group, or anyway to contact future rpi kid: all there was, is a form that asks simply 6 questions and randomly pairs with you someone, so I’m a little worried.

rachelblacker Leave a comment

1) It depends on what hall you’re discussing. In the Quad, almost all of the suite bathrooms are shared by 4 people (2 in each room). In Barton, all of the suite bathrooms are shared by 6 people (3 in each room). As far as I know, each suite bathroom (no matter where) has only 1 toilet stall, 1 shower, and 1 sink. Good question.

2) Yes, you can use floor bathrooms whenever you want.

Printing) I believe that the Quad is the only freshmen residence hall without an in-house printer. However, to clarify, there are printers all over campus not just at the “computer lab” (which you are probably referring to the Voorhees Computing Center (VCC). There are also computer labs all over campus. For a full list of public printers that students can use, take a look at this: http://helpdesk.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=301 . You should recognize some of those as names of the freshmen residence halls!

Freshman year roommate) When I was admitted two years ago, there was an admitted students site operated by RPI. If you’re not aware of this, they’ve probably done away with it (and moved to Facebook). This is where we went to find out (electronically) if we had been admitted, and we each had a profile. There were forums and chat rooms, etc. I found a guy on there who had similar interests as me and we made the arrangements. If this doesn’t exist, I would encourage you to make use of the RPI Class of 2015 Facebook group. Perhaps you could organize something off of this and get things moving?

In your 2 years at RPI, which dorms have you roomed in, and what were your likes/dislikes about them? If you could have picked differently, which dorms would you rather have had?

rachelblacker Leave a comment

I lived in the Quad (a double in Church I) my freshman year.

Last fall, I lived in the Quad (a single in Hunt III).

This spring, I live in an on-campus apartment at STACWYCK.

I chose to live in Quad again because I liked the atmosphere and proximity to campus. As a freshman in Quad, you still have friends who live nearby, but it is a little quieter (I’ve heard) than living in the long and connected hallways of a hall on Freshman Hill. Another neat thing about living in the Quad is having upper classmen nearby. I definitely feel like I knew a few more older students because I lived in Quad my freshman year. On the contrary, Freshman Hill halls do tend to be a little more social. Just think physically: the long hallways are very inviting to people wandering (or running) around and chatting. But, you are a little bit further from academic campus, and older students are in other buildings.

After a third semester in Quad, I decided I wanted to be try out apartment style living. I enjoyed Quad still, but some friends had a spot open in their apartment and none of my good friends lived nearby. I found myself spending a lot of wasted time sitting around in my single room. I think that, as a sophomore, I enjoy the apartment style more. There are always people around, but I still have privacy when I need to sleep or do work. Plus, we have our own kitchen and living room.

How how are the beds if you don’t loft them? Would we be able to fit a minifridge/drawers/something underneath them?

rachelblacker Leave a comment

I remember my bed last year was 11” off of the ground (to the bottom of the frame). But, my bed was one of the ones in the Quad. The beds in the Freshmen Five and some of the other halls can easily be 3’ off of the ground. I don’t know if that’s helpful.

About fitting stuff under: the ones not in the Quad can easily fit the furnished drawer set and perhaps a minifridge. Underbed storage is a great idea!

What exactly is the room layout in Quad? Are all the beds lofted? I am in a double and don’t know what to expect. I checked out the pictures but I couldn’t make anything of it.

rachelblacker Leave a comment

The Quad has a large variability in room layout. Some rooms are square, others are rectangular, and others are just… different. I feel that it is safe to say that all doubles in the Quad will have at least 1 lofted bed, some have both beds lofted. It really depends from room to room.

Two things actually; Which housing option do you think is the best for freshmen? Dorms like Bray, Crockett, Cary, etc, or Barton, the Quadrangle or BARH? And how exactly does the whole laptop situation work? I know they offer a deal on a really good laptop, but what was your experience with that?

rachelblacker Leave a comment

Calling any residence hall “the best” is an impossible choice to make. Depending on your lifestyle, you may prefer one hall over another. For starters, athletes tend to live in BARH, as it’s close to ECAV and the dining hall is open until 8:30pm. That being said, if you want to live in BARH and you’re not athletic, you can still fit in.

The Quad is often considered quieter because there are no hallways. This is where I live, and there is still plenty of social life. Also, BARH and the Quad hves upperclassmen living on the third floor; it can be nice to know older students. Quad is also really close to classes, especially compared to BARH. Quad residents typically eat at Sage.

Barton and the Freshmen Five are essentially equal in distance to ECAV, Commons, and the academic part of campus. Barton is just nicer and sometimes called “Hotel Barton.” These dorms overall are the most social because of their hallways and openness. Really though, everyone makes friends.

The laptop situation: RPI offers a Lenovo laptop for about $1800. The laptop comes ‘imaged’ with most of the software you need for classes and a four year service plan. This year, we got W500s. Some students complain about the quality of the laptop, but I’ve found them to be pretty high speed and the service plan is nice. Laptops with any problems can be taken to the Help Desk at the VCC and they will try to fix the problem or lend you a loaner laptop while they work on yours, if need be. If you don’t have the RPI laptop, the Help Desk can help you, but you won’t get full replacement parts and you have to chase down (and sometimes pay for) the software. You can find more information here: http://www.rpi.edu/laptops/