Lessons from Dorm Life

I got my course assignment for next semester. I am teaching, among other things, a course on collaboration and one on emotional/social intelligence. The catalysts for these courses are varied but they are, in part, the result of feedback from employers that note important skills missing from our student portfolios. As excited as I am to teach these courses, and anyone that knows me knows I say that with genuine passion, something struck me – why? As I prepare to teach about self-reflection, empathy, social awareness, methods for effective brainstorming, and communication, I am left thinking - these students could sure benefit from having lived the dorm life I was fortunate enough to have.

As a resident assistant in my undergraduate days, I was privileged work with, learn from, and live with some of the most amazing human beings. I met people and had experiences that taught me so many of the lessons I am covering with my students. So, since September was the month that a lot of my own university friends brought their children to school, I thought I would write about the lessons learned from dorm life and how they prepared me for the workplace.

Humility

The first one is humility. It is hard to believe someone can live with 20 other people on a floor and not be humbled at some point, especially when you are sharing a bathroom. What I learned, however, is that all people are flawed, and we all have different idiosyncrasies that make us who we are. This humility helped my self-confidence and my ability to ask the stupid questions.

Civility

When you live with so many other people, you learn a lot about them and what they believe. You also see their actions and decisions play out. In the dorm, however, you could not simply block people that had different views from your social life. If you disagreed with something you needed to find the common ground that allowed you to agree or disagree in a civil manner. We also did not have social media algorithms reinforcing your every belief which, I think, made it easier for us to explore differences. 

Empathy

Living with people from a variety of different hometowns, countries, and backgrounds, you learn there are significant differences in a lot of things from the daily routines to the holidays you celebrate. You also learned about peoples past experiences and live through their present realities. When this happens, you start to see things from different perspectives. You learn that the reason someone is behaving the way they are may be the result of something you cannot see while just sitting in a class with them. This realization helped me to not judge a book by its cover and understand that there is always more to the story.

Impact

What you do and say impacts others, this is one lesson I learned early in my first year away at school. My father, who never had the chance to finish his university education, would call me every single morning at 6am. It was his way to ensuring I behaved myself. Now, we did not have cell phones that you could mute, but we did at least have phones in our individual rooms. So, when that call came in, I had to be up and ready to answer it or I would be waking my neighbors up. You become keenly aware of what it is like to live in and be a member of a community when you live in a dorm. You see that your actions, big or small, can impact people in ways that you never intended.

Reminiscing one’s experiences, like living in the dorm, can bring up a lot of happy memories. I would be remised, however, if I did not note that it was not all fun. There were a lot of hard, difficult, and outright frustrating moments. Working through, coping with, and growing through those moments helped us build a sense of community and trust. All important things needed to have a happy and productive work environment.

My room at Lane Hall was 222. This number plate was sent from a friend before the building was torn down.