And I was just excited to get a mini microwave.

More and more, I'm hearing about what I like to call "designer dorm rooms."  Loyola College in Maryland has walk-in closets.  Pepperdine has on-site barbecue grills, beach vollyball courts and an ocean view.  ASU even has eco-friendly toilets.  And at UC-Merced, you can be notified online when your laundry is done. 

To those of us that used lowly coin-operated washing machines, these new developments seem a bit superfluous.  After all, part of the joy of dorm life was just how vastly different it was from living at home.  When I first moved into my dorm room freshman year, I remember thinking it looked like a prison cell crossed with an IKEA showroom.  My new roommates and I immdiately bonded over how we'd spruce the place up.  Spending countless hours covering every inch of the wall with magazine pages, we transformed the room into our own little palace.

Last week, I met with a senior to help her decide where to attend college.  It was so fun to see her excitement - about her major, the campus, and meeting her future roommate.  She said that she wouldn't know who the lucky roommate was until August, but that she was counting down the days.  It's nice to know that the important things haven't changed.

My dad once told me about sneaking out of his dorm room after curfew.  I remember laughing hysterically (both at the vision of him sneaking across the quad at midnight, and at the fact that there was a curfew).  I then stumbled upon this TIME photo essay, which shows how dorms have transformed over the last hundred years.  It's interesting to see which things have evolved (curfew, for example) and which things have stayed the same (looks like our idea of decorating the wall with magazine pages wasn't exactly a unique one).

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[KatieK]

Pictured - Flagler College dorms, St. Augustine, Florida.