The Foster-Walker Complex will close its rooms to freshman this fall, allowing more upperclassmen to have access to single rooms, and giving more freshmen access to the joys and the pains of random roommate selection. Limiting Plex to upperclassmen is a smart way to fill the wishes of upperclassmen for more singles while making sure freshmen live in a dorm where they will have the best experience.
Many upperclassmen want singles, and by Tuesday, the singles at Kemper Hall were already taken. Freshmen, on the other hand, often don't want to live alone, and except for special circumstances, they shouldn't. Having a freshman roommate, while sometimes painful, is a great way to make friends and is a fundamentally college experience.
While this switch in policy will probably lead to more open rooms in Plex next year, the shift will benefit smaller dorms that have been perennially unfilled, such as the Public Affairs and International Studies Residential Colleges.
Although the Community Assistants worked to make the all-freshman fourth floor of Plex a fun place to live, anecdotal evidence shows Plex freshmen do not have the social environment that is found in most of the smaller dorms on campus. Adjusting to college is hard enough without living on a floor where no one leaves their door open.
The end of freshmen in Plex likely signals the end of the short effort to build community in the Foster-Walker Complex. It is already hard to get upperclassmen to participate in dorm activities, especially those who gravitate towards Plex, either to live with a group of preexisting friends or to use their dorm room as nothing more than a place to sleep and study. And that's OK. Students choose different dorms for different reasons. We can't guarantee that next year's freshmen will love Northwestern, but at least they won't be alone in Plex.
Be the first to comment on this article!