Does Normal Life Flow on in the Dorms?
Speaking as someone who has lived in the dormitory for 6 years and 3 months, I will share with you my very personal perceptions and experiences. If you found the text emotionally overwhelming, then I have managed to show you dorm life from a sensitive girl’s perspective. I will cover both advantages and disadvantages of this lifestyle, and I hope that you will find it helpful if you are going to enter university and a new phase of your life. It is worth mentioning that all my experiences are limited to the dormitories of Iran, not any other country. Let’s start with the sunny side of dorm life.
Sunny Sides
Good days can be found in the heart of all difficulties, and my dorm life was not an exception. I wrote this article 6 years after my dorm life and recalling these good memories signifies the true happiness of those days.
Overexcited
When I started my dorm life, I was only 18 and super excited to start a new life. I was placed in a 6-person room which meant I had to adapt myself to living with 5 other new people in the same room. All beautiful and kind girls that we had a lot to share in the first days. We could talk about our interests, favorite books, singers, fashion sense, and hometown for hours. But it was a short phase before we all got to know each other and had to deal with personal and cultural diversities and difficulties.
Tea Gatherings
I can confess that the teatime of dorms was the most heavenly moments of life. Every afternoon when all classes were over and we were free we had a gathering to drink tea. Tea parties play a significant role in the memories of any Iranian student. Sometimes other girls from other rooms joined us in our tea gathering. Those small tea gatherings, sometimes accompanied by reciting Hafiz poems, were really heartwarming.
Girls’ Day Out
Since we were not allowed to stay out after 8 pm, instead of girls' night out we enjoyed girl’s day out. The new city was like a wonderland and we all were excited to discover it, to visit its historical sites, to stroll in malls, to go to cafes, and have fun together.
Birthday Parties
Birthday parties were the most exciting events in the dorms. Despite all diversities in character and difficulties in getting along, when it was the birthday of one of the girls, all girls reunited to line the best birthday party for the birthday girl. We would buy gifts and cake to surprise the birthday girl. Maybe we were trying to show her that she was not alone despite being apart from her family. Every girl who has lived in the dorm has got some of those birthday photos, I bet!
Exam Nights
Not everyone in the dorm was a hardworking and studious one. Classmates who were from other cities used to live in the same dorm and we could share answers to exercises and borrow notebooks the night before the exam. It was even heartwarming to have a partner to stay up and study for the morning exam.
Cloudy Side
I had many good days in the dorm, but they were not the dominant days of my dorm life. I can say those good memories were so less that they are about to fade away in my memories. Despite being thankful for all those fun days, I think some root causes turn dorm life into a drama. What comes next are the biggest challenges I faced during those years.
1 Room for 6 Cities
As meaningless as it can be, you may wonder how it is possible to place 6 different cities and 6 different cultures in a room smaller than 15 meters, but it is possible when it comes to Iran’s dormitories.
While doing my Master’s I lived in a room for 6 months with 5 other girls, each from a different city, culture, ideology, lifestyle, and dreams!
While one of them was a night owl and would stay up until 3 am the other one was an early bird. And that’s not the whole story, we had another girl who preferred to stay in bed until noon. So, for getting good sleep I had to develop some skills to cope with the light of the study lamp of a night owl, not to get disturbed at 5 am by the cracking sound of an early bird’s bed, and how to be careful until noon so I wouldn’t disturb the other girl who preferred sleeping in.
What makes me think is that why dormitories are allowed to offer a 6-person room! How is it possible to get along with 5 other people?
While getting money from every single person they crapped people into small rooms with the least facilities.
Every Dormitory Needs a Psychologist
Being away from family and feeling lonely are enough reasons to let you do whatever will result in hurting you. While I believe in feminism and don’t want to be against women’s relationships I have to say that being rejected from a girl’s network can be the most dangerous trauma someone can suffer from in the dorms.
When you feel alone and you need to share those deep feelings with someone and free yourself, you may trust any friends in the dorm, you may share it with your roommate! Good! Now you feel better, you have found someone! But actually, you are sharing that feeling or secret not only with that roommate but with all her network in the dorm and that’s when you would never feel safe and secured.
It happened to me while I was only 19 and after that, I never dared to share my secret with anyone and it was kind of impossible to trust even good ones. All my criteria to evaluate a trustable person were questioned!
At that time I wished that our dormitory had a psychologist, so instead of telling whatever I needed to wrong people I could share it with a psychologist and get good solutions.
Freedom Questioned under the Name of rules
When it comes to rules, we all know that controlling or better to say managing somewhere without making rules is not possible. But can you imagine that in our dorm girls were not allowed to stay out later than 8 pm?
Recently I saw a tweet saying that one of the dormitories guards has warned the girls not to order in later than 10 p.m. So, are they supposed to stay hungry? What are the reasons and logic behind it?
In our dorm, we were required to give a list of our relatives affirmed by our parents. We were only allowed to stay over at houses of people from the list. The dormitory guards would call our parents and if necessary our relatives to make sure that we are with them.
Food Crisis
I don’t know how many of you have been through this, but it was almost impossible to keep your favorite food in the fridge of the dorm.
I used to share a fridge with 5 other people and I literally can’t put into words how difficult it was to find our frozen foods among the stuff of 5 other people in the refrigerator.
What Happened at the End?
I can label “gaining life skills” as the most tremendous achievement of living in the dorm. From being an 18-year old inexperienced girl I grew into a 24 who learned to respect diversities, to be kind and honest to those who betrayed my trust. After being rejected from poisonous circles I learned to shelter anyone who trusts me instead of being against her. I learned to know the value of being emotionally independent and get ready for real-life!
