When applying to freshman housing this summer, I’d heard that where you live on campus at Northwestern is kind of a big deal.
Thinking in absolutes, as most kids heading into college do, I’d heard about the fun dorms, the chill dorms, the diverse dorms and the antisocial dorms, and I'd roughly pinned down that South Campus was artsy and North Campus was fratty. Aligning myself more with the latter in this wonderfully superficial scale, which I sincerely hope no one else does for the general sake of keeping up appearances, I decided that I had to be in either Bobb-McCulloch Hall or Elder Residential Community and wouldn’t settle for anything else.
You can imagine my unmitigated happiness at getting assigned to Elder and my utter bewilderment when I was reassigned to South Mid-Quads a couple weeks before school started. (I’m not trying to disrespect the unfortunate souls who were placed there, and I wish you all the best of luck with that.)
Mark D’Arienzo, associate director of university housing, said the reason for this switch was a glitch in housing’s computerized Residential Managing Services (RMS) system. When the Elder community was formed from the combination of 600 Lincoln, 610 Lincoln, and Elder Hall, the computer system wasn’t updated to reflect this combination, and as a result 14 freshmen, including myself, were assigned to storage closets. While living like Harry Potter would’ve perhaps been a swell story for the grandkids, I imagine the novelty would’ve worn off pretty quickly.
So after a bunch of angry calls to the housing office in what was, no doubt, a rough weekend for them (sorry I’m not sorry), we were given an ultimatum: stay in SMQ, move to an upperclassman single or move to the Bobb basement. All 14 of us in this predicament chose the basement, and thus began our unexpected foray into living underground.
The basement has always existed as an emergency housing center, according to D’Arienzo. For example, food staff and tech people were housed there overnight when Northwestern had to close a few years ago due to a snowpocalypse. The basement wasn’t known for being particularly nice, however – the old student nickname for it was “the pit.”
However, housing decided to convert the basement into a full-blown student living area this year due to the last minute reassignment. They even invited 12 sophomores and juniors on the waitlist for Bobb to come on down as well, and as such the entire Bobb-McCulloch basement was filled with an assortment of men. Who knows, maybe the implied dankness of living in a basement was deemed to be too much for girls to handle.
Before embarking on my pre-orientation trip, I thought I’d stop by to see what the basement would be like, and for the most part it seemed pretty standard, with a nice proximity to multiple study lounges, the laundry room and the mailroom. We have vaulted ceilings and our windows look directly onto the ground, which is pretty cool. My hall mate acutely observed that come winter, when we’re under an omnipresent three feet of snow, we’d be enveloped in pitch-blackness. I was also told that, sooner or later, our entire hall will flood, though with my background in high school chemistry, environmental science and science in general, I declare bullshit on that one. Especially after that wild thunderstorm a couple nights ago, I’d say that the ground/soil could definitely keep up with all that rain run-off. I guess we’ll simply roll with the punches.
Being next to the mailroom and laundry room means that, for better or worse, we’re a hub of activity. Everyone in Bobb comes down to the basement at some point, which leads to some interesting situations.
You know you’re in for something different when your CA makes you clean up vomit on the floor using only tissues. Living underground has quirks such as noise insulation, which is nice in Bobb, and some sort of geothermal funkiness going on; temperature controls are wacko, and everything smells vaguely earthy. Not all these underground quirks are great, however; when opening my blinds in the morning I’d prefer to be greeted by a gloriously shining sun as opposed to a bunch of dead plants. This is Chicago after all, not the tropics. When walking by 10 people in the lounge, mailroom, laundry room, and the works after showering makes you wish you went to SPAC instead of hot cookie bar this weekend. When there’s a party almost every night, simply due to the fact that people are always here. I promise I’m not trying to sound like the coolest; it’s just what happens.
So while I, along with my fellow basement dwellers, was definitely perplexed when I reassigned to the basement, I think we’d all agree that the result has been serendipitous. Who knows how basement living will continue throughout the year, but I’m definitely excited to find out.