The Grand Finale

The Perfect Hall

                Again, I’m veering off from the real topic of this blog, but I’m going to describe the perfect residence hall. This is all to my opinion, and take it as you will. You see, every blog I posted about a residence hall had at least one bad thing about it, meaning it is imperfect in my eyes. I doubt that my ideas for this hall are at all feasible, but it’s a good foundation to at least build on.

                You see, I’ve always been a fan of content, instead of detail. I mean, both are nice, but what’s the point of having any detail if there is no content to detail? I don’t think there is any, but then tons of people would be out of jobs.

                Now, to hilite what each halls did great:

1.       Sny-Phi – Excellent job at the interior and exterior of this hall. I love it in there. The “gothic manor” type of building has always been cool to me, and I like that about this hall. Location is also pretty central to campus, making it a breeze to navigate to the other locations on campus.

2.       Brody – Your cafeteria is amazing. It’s by far the biggest on campus, and arguably the best. There’s so many different options, that can appeal to every type of person on campus. It covers most diversities of common people, and that just furthers it’s goodness.

3.       Akers – I hate you, but I love some of the features it has. For some reason, the East events are done in Akers. The Halloween festival made Akers amazing. They literally redid the entire hall for ONE NIGHT, and made it spectacular. There were fog machines that bugged me (I’ve had asthma all my life), but it was done in moderation. The food was all cleverly themed, brains, guts.. etc. It was just the proudest I’ve been of Akers. I’ve also seen at least two blood drives take place here. It was also a voting location  last November. (This is off topic.. But did you know that the Cata busses give free bus rides on election days to registered voters? While it could be argued that this is politically motivated, as most youth generally votes a particular way… but it’s at least something that makes students have ambition to get voted, which is a great trend to start.

4.       Wilson – The movie night is fantastic. Free to residents, two dollars to non-residents. It’s just brilliant. It is fun, it is easy to get everyone involved, and it’s easily organized and maintained. I’d rate any hall that encourages this type of involvement regularly high on a chart.

5.       Hubbard – The Sparty’s inside this café is just amazing. The grill inside can make French fries, burgers, mozzarella sticks, and more that I can’t even remember right now… And you get one set of those a day (except on weekends… gr.) with your normal meal plan. If nothing else, it’s a great snack on the go, or a quick thing between classes. This Sparty’s is literally a masterpiece.

6.       McDonel – You cater to the type of people that live there. Which, is commendable. It doesn’t work for everyone, but not everyone is atypical of that hall. Making people not from this country feel like home is great, and I’m proud to consider myself a student of an institution that partakes in that activity. I’m still pretty irked that this café is closing, but there’s really nothing I can do about it… right?

7.        Case – I never got the opportunity to really do an in depth review of this hall, but from what I can gather when I visit friends there, the driving force behind this hall is the community. It’s an extremely friendly place, despite that most of the students there are political science.. Maybe they’re just friendly to each other, but it has the type of community that should be strongly encouraged…. I also don’t think that the designers or institution had anything to do with this bond, other than facilitating it, but it’s great.

8.       Holmes – I would have died this year without  your café being open at most wake hours of the day. Seriously, it’s winter now… And I don’t have the motivation to thaw out my bike lock, and ride over to Sny-Phi and get the best food I can. You’re open until midnight, and I love that… Also open on weekends. Thank you!

9.       Hubbard – Your colors still intrigue me, lol.

That’s my final blog post…. Thank you to everyone who read them, and hopefully you find them easy to comment on... Keep in mind, I try and make my point of view very pronounced, with the hope of giving you something to disagree with, to help you get up to the desired page length… You will not offend me, EVER, by disagreeing with me… It’s actually encouraged.

Peace out!

What's up, Bro[dy]!

                So.. In my travels to Brody land, I realized Brody isn’t actually a hall… and the people that live there kind of get angry when you ask that. It must be some kind of a brotherhood or something. Or like fight club. I don’t really care. But this was interesting to me. “Brody” is actually the neighborhood, just like Akers, Holmes, and Hubbard form the “East Neighborhood” there is a “Brody Neighborhood.” Rather than do all six of the subsections separately, because I don’t really feel like doing that, I’ll generalize all six of them and continue to call them “Brody” For reference, however, the names of the six halls are: Armstrong, Bailey, Bryan, Butterfield, Emmons, Rather.

                There’s nothing special about any of these halls. I even looked at each website, and the best thing any of them could boast about were that they all have community bathrooms, and one of them is alcohol free. Woop-dee-doo. One of them also has a second floor honors hall. But again, woop-dee-doo. Everyone always talks about how great Brody is, but all the halls are bland… And parking is terribly organized… It’d be the one place on campus where I’d be fuming if I got a parking ticket.

                So, what then is everyone’s fascination with this Brody? The café. Duh. Apparently, there is some great appeal in going to a place that is absolutely nowhere near your last class. Makes sense to me.

                You see, last year, they started redoing the middle of brody place, and made it into an enormous Café, with the intent of adding all kinds of other stuff into that massive building. It’s not all done, but going in there is very aesthetically pleasing. The exterior is phenomenal, the circular study room thing is amazing. They definitely made the building spectacular. And that spectacular appearance definitely carried into the café. The things inside of that café, just in the structure, are amazing. When I took my sister and niece to this café, they were both in awe of the interior, and exterior (it almost made up for there being no logical place to park, making a small walk to get there).

                And the Café itself… This café is the biggest on campus, and actually rivals Sny-Phi for quality…. But where the Brody café surpasses all others in its quantity. Now, trust me… I’ll take quality of food over quantity every single day of the week, but if it’s all decent, and there is a metric crap ton of choices inside of it, there’s no reason to not love it. I’m personally of the opinion that the café itself would have better food if there weren’t all the different stations, as it lets them put more focus on the good ones, but alas, it isn’t my decision for some reason.

                The café boasts an impressive number of nine or ten stations, AND it’s own bathroom inside of it… Believe it or not, that’s not common.. Again, stupid.. but moving on..

                The stations vary from the token sub/pizza station (surprised?), a lengthy salad bar, some kind of Asian food that scares me to even try, a station that does a lot of pasta stuff (Chicken, spaghetti, lasagna… Etc, etc, etc), the newest token among the cafés: a hamburger joint, ‘Homestyle,’ which basically has a mini holiday dinner at one station (Rotisserie chicken, or Turkey, Potatoes, Gravy, stuffing, and other various fixings), a sushi center, where they make sushi as you request it, how you request it (which I find disgusting, not that they cater it to you.. just the concept of sushi.. ew), and little Mexican joint, with enchiladas, tacos, and Quesadillas (Don’t forget to pronounce the two Ls, they love it… Trust me.)

                But, according to someone who I don’t know if they have any authority, but they work with them on this issue, the café is some how failing…. Well no shit it’s failing, it’s in the middle of nowhere… Sure, a bunch of people are requesting to live in those 6 halls nowadays, but really? They’re going to cater to those six halls enormously? I’ve gone there twice this semester. Only twice. I’m going again tomorrow, and that’s only because my sister is coming to pick me up, and I don’t want to subject her to the shit food at Akers.

Peace!

Do work, son. (cont)

                In my last post, I started talking about the jobs that are available to you, as a Michigan State student. As also stated in that post, the benefits of these jobs are excellent, in that it lowers the need for loans, and well, and that means less interest… Which is superb, any way of looking at it.

                Anyway, here are some of the other positions in the residence hall:

               

                Night Receptionist – These people have the job of working shifts between midnight and eight A.M. Basically, they are the people that check you in if you were out past midnight any day of the week. This is likely a security measure, as all other entrances to the dorms stop working at midnight. What they do is check your ID, ask your room number, and check that your ID matches the name on the room number. If you have a guest with you, you also have to help them fill out a guest pass request form. It isn’t an overly involved job, so during the off times where people aren’t there, it’s a good opportunity to play games, or to catch up on homework, or to just do some facebooking. Obviously the hard part to this job is staying awake through the third shift hours. I personally like that, as I’ve always slept weird hours myself... But I also acknowledge that I’m quite the opposite of normal.

                Another set of positions in the residence halls, are the positions inside the cafeteria. There are all arrays of jobs in there, be it the ones who wipe tables, wash dishes, cook food, or swipe your card. I really don’t know much about these jobs, except they are some of the most social jobs, and probably the easiest to get, as there are so many positions for these available in every hall on campus. Odds are, if you try, you can get into one of these with relative ease. I’m not saying these aren’t good jobs, or respectable jobs, as I firmly believe any job is respectable, but if you’re a freshman, or anyone really, with no credentials, here would be a good place to start building your foundation on your resumes, and can also provide good sources of references in the future.

                Another position, that might get overlooked on occasion is the that of a Teaching Assistant. I had the opportunity to talk to one of the teaching assistants (TAs) in my Intro to Engineering class. Basically, what a teaching assistant does is assign and grades all the work that a higher up professor tells them to do. There’s more to it than that, at the TA and Professor’s discretion, but that’s a bulk of it. They get paid around fifteen dollars an hour… Or at least the one in my engineering class did. It probably varies, dependant upon a lot of things. But who cares… Being a teacher’s TA is almost a guaranteed letter of recommendation when you’re getting ready to start applying for jobs. If you do a good job at being that TA, you’ll probably get an even better letter of recommendation, which really can make the difference between getting a job or not. You do have to put up with a bunch of students, and answer questions frequently, and it does take a chunk of time out of each day of yours grading shit, but it definitely has perks. I think there is a portion of college credit you get for being a TA, but I’m not sure… It’d kind of make sense if there was, though.

                The last common job I know of are the people that work the desks in each of the residence halls. These people often have to work on weekends, and their main job is to answer questions about the hall, and various other things on campus. Other duties involve e-mailing people when packages arrive, sorting mail to people to make sure it gets put in the right box, and stuff like that. They also have to give you toilet paper when you’re in need of a roll… Hey, free toilet paper!

                That’s all of the common jobs I think of that students normally do on campus. There are undoubtedly more, but I find these the most abundant, and most interesting.. Feel free to detail others that you know of!

Do work, son.

                Today’s blog post is going to be in a slightly different fashion than usual. Today, I’m going to go into detail about every resident hall working position. I’ve recently had to start looking for employment, and have decided to look on campus for this, for several reasons.

                Working on campus grants you an additional $1,500 – $2,000 scholarship, per semester. Over the course of eight semesters, this feat will save you $12,000 - $16,000… If it’s the latter of the two, that is nearly a full semester, COMPLETELY PAID, just for doing some work on campus. And that is on top of being paid for the work you do! I don’t have the exact figures on what each position on campus makes monetarily for their work, but who cares, really? It’s probably around minimum wage, and you are only allowed to work around twenty hours a week. While some look at that as a horrible thing, it is pretty nice that they’re restricting you like that. It gives more room for other people to work shifts, and it allows for you to have a life outside of your work.

                So here is a list of the campus jobs, and my general opinions, and whatever else I feel like writing about them:

                Resident mentor - This is the position I personally applied to. To become a resident mentor, you have to have at least a 2.5 GPA, you must have earned at least 13 credits (meaning, most second semester freshmen, all sophomores, all juniors, and all seniors +) . The perks of being a resident mentor are FREE room and board for the semesters you do it, on top of the work study scholarship on top of that. Room and board is around what? 3,500 a year? Give or take. Let’s assume you start being a resident mentor in your second semester, and continue to be one until you graduate your fourth year at college. That’s seven semesters. 7 * $1750 = $12,250 dollars saved. And that’s for a single dorm room… A room, all to yourself… That to me almost makes it completely worth it… all free.. I’m not sure if the resident mentors get free meal plans or not, but that would just add on to the benefits. And that’s on top of the $12,000 - $16,000 dollars you save just by working on campus. Pretty impressive, I’d say anyway.

                Resident Mentors have the job of communicating with their floor what is going on around campus. Some do this beautifully, by sending out weekly or biweekly e-mails to their floor. Others don’t give a shit and tell you to find out for yourself. Both work, having a nag while at campus could be pretty annoying.

                Resident mentors also have to deal with annoying people on their floor who are having issues with their roommate. I don’t know, nor do I really care how they do this, I just know that’s what they’re supposed to do. They also have to go to stupid weekly weekends, in order for their hall to receive some kind of funding from something or another. There are also frequent training sessions for these positions, which are supposed to be able to help you with your job, and relate better to people… or something like that anyway.

                You also have to set aside a block of time each week for office hours. This is the time of the day that the people in your hall have free reign to come and annoy you with complains, questions, and advice. This time you set aside is actually pretty important, as that is how they judge your hours they need to pay you for… If you get paid. Basically, what these office hours involve is sitting at a desk, across the hall from where you live, and chatting on facebook, or doing homework until someone walks in and asks a question. At this point, you minimize what you were “working on”, and give them their full attention. Answer their questions accordingly, and kindly show them the exit. (the last part is fudged, just a little bit.. but it’s probably what they wish most of the time).

                This job has so many perks. The only reason I can possibly see justifying not wanting to be one is your currently already way to busy, and office hours would cramp your style.. Also, having to be held to a higher standard than those around you is difficult for some people.

                I realize I only talked about one position in this blog… But in the next one, I should have less to say about the few remaining positions on campus. Stay tuned, folks!

Ole mother Hubbard

While not technically the “largest” residence hall on our campus, Hubbard is most certainly the tallest. At a whopping twelve stories, Hubbard creates a fairly large shadow over the rest of Hubbard. Hubbard receives a lot of recognition for this fact. At orientation, the “tour guide” people brought up hubbard’s 12 stories, and there was a prize for guessing correctly how tall the building is… Which was 103 feet, if I remember correctly. Recently during a storm, a friend on my Facebook posted this as his status. “i wonder if the 11 story Hubbard Towers have blown over yet...its so windy.” While obviously he’s a moron, and we tell him this daily, it does bring attention to the attention Hubbard receives for its incredible size. It’s almost like “Pop Culture – MSU Style!” That said… Rock on Hubbard, keep being tall n’ stuff! (and haha at you if you live on the 12^th story… Bet you LOVE the fire drills, and not being allowed to use the elevators.. Going down every stair is a journey!)

                Anyway... Onto actually talking about the hall.

                Hubbard was designed by drug addicted people. There’s no way that all the trippy colors in those nonsensical orders, tossed in with random shaped sculptures and paintings, was arranged by someone that had clear thought. There’s so much purple. Then BAM ORANGE WOAH. Like.. Did these people just forget that the colors of our university are green and white? I mean.. Some variation is fine… but don’t just pick up whatever color paint you have left, and make a “masterpiece” of a hall out of it. Meh, maybe I’m alone on this thought, but every time I go there, I can’t help but notice the trippy colors. (As a side note: I don’t actually know if the designers were druggies, or implying that drug abusers are bad people… But if I was high or something, I would probably make a hall look similar to that. Just sayin’.)

                The cafeteria inside Hubbard is gets a thumbs up. The structure inside should be different, as it’s kind of confusing, but it pretty much works.  Their stations provide enough variety, as to make it so everyone can eat something they like. Whether it be an easy burger, to spaghetti, to just grabbing a simple bowl of soup. And of course, like every other hall, the token pizza station with Cheese, Pepperoni, and a random pizza that is rarely appetizing looking. At evening, I’m sure they bring out the bread… Someone thought it made sense that people don’t like cheesy bread for lunch… That person, is stupid. Everyone loves cheesy bread. Gosh. Their salad bar may be the biggest on campus. I don’t know if it really is, but I’ve travelled the halls pretty good at this point, and it’s probably the biggest I’ve seen. Much variety, much food, much happiness… Win-win-win, good idea, to whichever hippy thought of it.

                After speaking to a member of the Hubbard hall, I was able to get an idea of what living there was actually like. And from what this “informant” says, it’s pretty bad. At least on some of the floors.

                You see, some of the floors are designated to a program called “The First Year Experience.” Which, couldn’t be named worse. These RAs are straight power tripping. How the hell does that prepare you for your sophomore year on campus? See, here is a time line I created very cleverly, using logic.

1-      Being babied at home, by your parents

2-      Being Babied at college, by your RA

3-      Sophomore – Bam! All by yourself. Maybe a roommate.

4-      REAL WORLD GET USED TO IT.

I’m not saying having an overly active RA is bad, I’m saying that it’s causing the program to be horribly named, and having the exact opposite effect that they are trying to avoid. That’s what I’m saying. Also, I said this earlier, but reading is fundamental and gets ignored, not every hall in Hubbard is like that. Please keep that in mind before you comment about the drug abusing RA  you have, or the stoners that designed the hall.

Hubbard’s also in a pretty bad location… Way on the east side of campus, when all of your classes are going to be in the middle of campus, or on the other side. I just don’t like the placement of residence halls, unless the intention is to take a stand against obesity in America… If that’s the case, then keep placing the residence halls horribly.

        This was a pretty bad review… But I actually like Hubbard, I just wouldn’t want to live there.

What's up, Holmes?

Holmes hall

                Holmes hall is the home of the “Lymann Briggs” college, the residential undergraduate program that focuses on the natural sciences in historical, philosophical, literary, and social contexts. It’s home to nearly two thousand students, and is considered an honors college.

                Holmes hall is the largest residence hall on campus. Given the newly renovated Sparty’s, the enormous Cafeteria, and several of the lounges, this is an easy to imagine feat. There’s also a volunteer weight room located within, a fitness center, and rooms dedicated to just playing music… Hopefully those rooms are silenced, both ways. Coed floors are available, which is seemingly uncommon here.. At least from the halls that I’ve visited, there’s only a couple others like that.

                Luckily for them, Holmes comes with lofts already in their rooms… So none of the ridiculously priced lofts are required to build at the beginning of the semester, and then the ridiculous take down price.

                I love Holmes cafeteria, although it may not be because of their food. You see, living in Akers, it’s the closest cafeteria to me that does not have absolutely moronic and nonsensical  hours of operation. It’s times are perfect. 8 a.m. to Midnight, EVERY DAY! And by every day… Even weekends! Wow!

                The cafeteria, of course, has the token Pizza station. I’ve come to expect that in my voyages of the Michigan State residence halls. Pizza must be the food that is universally liked… or it’s just cheap and easy to make. Either way, it’s good stuff. Also attached to the pizza station, is the token sub/sandwich line. Wraps, subs, etc etc with all the fixings.

                The café also has a pretty impressive salad bar. Containing salads, fruits, vegetables, yogurt, pudding, and a variety of other side-dishes, making it one of the largest salad bar stations I’ve seen on campus.

                One station of the Café inside of the holmes hall, will make waffles tailored to what you want on or inside of the waffle, for a breakfast sensation. Later in the day, as it becomes time for lunch and dinner, this station converts to making stir-fry.

                During my visit to the Holmes Hall, I encountered an elementary school activity, in which college students were assisting children in arts and crafts, egg drops down the stairs, and a few other fun sounding activities. I think it’s a great opportunity to get people of all ages involved. I didn’t have an opportunity to find out more about these events, but it would be awesome if it regularly occurred, and if very little MSU employee involvement is involved. Thumbs up on creativity, and for giving back to the community. It’s the little things that make you smile.

                Overall, Holmes hall seems like a great hall. It’s the first one that I’ve really never encountered anything that greatly annoyed me about it. Some of the artwork on the walls seems irrelevant, and slightly strange, but someone somewhere likes it, making it not my place to comment or influence my opinions onto people on this particular subject. I guess the only issue with Holmes is the wacky positioning on our campus… But that’s a necessary evil… If only, if only, all the residence halls were located in the center. Fat chance of that ever happening, but I can wish.

The Wilson hall

Wilson –

                Home to the engineering residential experience, I get to go all the way across campus a few times a week to visit this dorm building! Aside from being extremely far away, it is not a terrible dorm… However, I do take some issue with some of the finer points of the dorm, as well as some of the better aspects.

                The good: I love that the building has everything you could want in it. It has a Sparties station, and a large cafeteria. The cafeteria has an amazing deli line, be it wraps, sandwiches, or grinders. It’s incredibly convenient. The one other food station, other than the token “Pizza Gallery” in every dining hall, is of fairly good quality. There’s really no theme behind it, as such I can’t make a generalized statement about it… But it’s probably decent every day. Yesterday it was Calzones and Sloppy joes, and they seemed to be decent enough for human consumption.

                The lounge is pretty amazing. It’s very large, and has an enormous T.V. It’s used for building parties fairly frequently, and a lot of the games are held in here. While pretty disturbing to those that actually want to study in the, er, study lounge, it is a fun opportunity with food and games. I walked in on one, and it was pretty impressive the amount of people who got involved and participated.

                And don’t forget about the amazingly close proximity to the Spartan Stadium. While most other corners of campus have to go through traffic and have a distant walk, not Wilson. When it’s raining, the residents of Wilson are probably pretty thankful.

                There appears to be a “Movie Night” once a weak in the Wilson auditorium. I haven’t had an opportunity to attend one, but it sounds like a good idea. Meet some new people, watch a movie, eat some pizza, just sounds like a good time to mingle. Unless to movie sucks, then I guess the attendees are united in a different fashion. But alas, good idea overall.

                But of course, what is a good hall review, without the bad? Not reporting both sides is horrible, and should be frowned upon… Without further ado:

                The bad – The inside of the building makes no sense. I feel like I never know where I’m at when I’m inside of this building. I literally have to go out the same door that I came in, because the spot I think I’m in within this hall isn’t where I am at, at all. There’s just something about this hall.

                And I am surprisingly not the one who first said that.. I was thinking it, but never said it out loud because I felt it sounded stupid. However, my friend was the first one to say it, and I couldn’t agree more with them. It’s just true… Maybe it’s the sparties in the middle of the main floor throwing off my instruction? I don’t know, but there’s definitely something trippy in this hall. Maybe drugs are in the air. Who knows?

                I alluded to this earlier, in “the good” of the hall, but true to form I tried not to bash the hall in “the good” section. The Cafeteria… There’s a whole two stations of food. Two. Only two, and one is closed frequently. How is that enough for people to eat? It’s silly, just plain silly. I mean, it’s not that having a sandwich every day isn’t amazing and all that good stuff, but people like variety. I don’t understand why these cafeterias do this. It’s silly.

                And the hours the hall is open… What the hell? They literally close for two hours after 2 pm? Why? You can leave the café open  with on and a half stations open, but you can’t leave it open between those hours while you switch some of the containers? Why? It boggles me, it really does. They’re still open until midnight, but every day of the week has three less hours of the day in it, due to their horrible schedule.

                The west side of Wilson currently has a broken elevator. The elevator is estimated to be repaired by January, in which the other elevator will be down for repair. Not really the best logic for a six story building to do that for long periods of time. Shoddy planning, I think, anyways.

                That’s all for this review.. Tune in soon for the next review of the Michigan State residence halls.