Bad Dorms?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Miami - Florida
21

<p>Rob, thanks for those pics. Brings back memories. I will never forget that view from my dorm room, almost 30 years ago now.</p>

22

<p>Rankinr</p>

<p>I just emailed you some pics. Thanks for posting them!</p>

23

<p>You can find SVMMom’s pic’s here:</p>

<p><a href=“http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/1.jpg[/url]”>http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/1.jpg&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/2.jpg[/url]”>http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/2.jpg&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/3.jpg[/url]”>http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/3.jpg&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/4.jpg[/url]”>http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/4.jpg&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/5.jpg[/url]”>http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/5.jpg&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/6.jpg[/url]”>http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/6.jpg&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/7.jpg[/url]”>http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/7.jpg&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/8.jpg[/url]”>http://robrankin.com/SVMMom/8.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

24

<p>Thanks Rankinr!!!</p>

25

<p>Freshman dorms have HUGE closets which is usually unheard of.</p>

<p>Not the best of dorms, but should not be a deal breaker at all. They are definitely livable and suitable.</p>

26

<p>Thank you to everyone… I feel more confident about the dorms now</p>

27

<p>I’m a senior and I lived in the dorms for 2 years (Hecht freshman year, Mahoney sophomore year). My take on the dorms on Miami is this:</p>

<p>Our dorms are old. But the freshmen dorms are bigger than freshman dorms most other places, the closets are huge, and the bathrooms are decent. I’d rather have an older, bigger dorm than a newer, smaller dorm (American U had nice new dorms but they were TINY). There are also no triples which is a huge plus.
The upperclassmen dorms suck compared to other schools. You either have the suite-style dorms (2 doubles connected by a bathroom) or the apartments, which were built in the 40s for WWII veterans returning to school with their families. They’re actually closing down some of the apartments due to lack of interest. Most people move off-campus by junior year. It actually costs pretty much the same to live off campus, depending on where you choose to live.
There is also University Village for juniors and seniors, which is technically on-campus, but they’re new apartments where you have your own room and usually your own bathroom. They’re nice, but they’re overpriced and you’re better off just moving into an apartment off campus.</p>

<p>Basically the dorms could be better, could be worse. The one year you have to live on-campus is freshman year and those dorms aren’t bad. I would recommend moving off campus sophomore year, but most people wait til junior year. I definitely would not decide not to come to UM because of the dorms, that would be silly, they’re such a small part of the experience.</p>

28

<p>thanks for posting pictures. i had 2 concerns about um when i applied:its dorms and its reputation outside u.s., specifically in middle asia.So now I see that dorms aren’t that bad.</p>

29

<p>rankinr, could you tell me what size tv is in your pictures (post #14)? Would you recommend getting that size or smaller?</p>

30

<p>It was my roommate’s TV, and was probably 40 inches or more. It was really nice to have such a large TV, but the problem is that where we had it was on the complete opposite side of the room of the wall jack, so that ran across my roommates desk and got in his way. Plus, I kind of like being able to look out the lower window. But, if you don’t mind not being able to look out the lower window, then it’s fine - just be sure to get a long (15 feet or so) cord to run from the wall jack to the TV. I think that you’d be just fine with a smaller 15-20 inch TV, though.</p>

31

<p>Is there a way to run the cord behind the furniture? Bc I wouldn’t like having that on my
desk, lol. And I agree with you, I would like to be able to see out of the bottom of my window. Are there any other places to put the tv?
…thanks for getting back to me so quickly and for posting the pictures of your room - really helpful!</p>

32

<p>All the furniture is locked in place, except for the bed and chair. You could run it up over the furniture, and tape it on the wall or something, if you had a long enough cord, or you could run the cord across your dresser, down a small area between the drawer in your desk and the dresser, back against that wall, under your drawers in the desk, under your bed, then over to the TV. But, I’d recommend that if you’re going to put the TV where we put ours that you run it over the furniture, way up on the wall where it will be out of your way. Alternatively, what lots of people do is actually set the TV on top of the dresser. Of course, this has limitations, such as the person who has the TV on their side of the room can’t usually angle it very well to their bed (which doubles as a couch-type thing) and it often won’t fit if the TV is too big. Plus, it takes up your whole dresser and blocks the view of your mirror.</p>

<p>The roommate I had for the second part of last year said that he mounted his TV on the wall, and that no one said anything and they didn’t charge him for it. But, no promises; they say they will charge you for it if you drill into the wall. One thing I always wanted to do was run ropes under the TV and latch it into the air conditioning, which is about three feet in front of the entrance door. But it could probably fall down very easily, and might not even work in the first place. TV placement is always hard to figure out. Another thing you could do is just put it away, then when you want to watch it set up a chair in the middle of the room near the entrance and watch it from there. If your roommate isn’t in, you can set it on the shelving area above their bed, which is about the best position you’re likely to get.</p>

<p>Be sure you talk about this stuff with your roommate, too, because he might be on the side of the room where the cord would have to run, and he might be okay with running the cord across his stuff or setting the TV on his desk. Or, if you have a single, disregard everything I’ve said. Good luck! I’m sure that some other people on here have experience with this issue…? Anyone else have some TV advice?</p>

33

<p>The best place to put a TV in the freshman dorms is in front fo the window between the beds. My roomie and I originally had our fridge there and our TV on a rolling cart kind of just in the middle of the room but that didn’t work. Most guys probably don’t care about having a TV on their dresser, but you’ll never see a girls’ room set up like that. We just ran the cord along on the shelf thing next to the bed (the beds have this storage/shelf/padding thing on the wall next to them and if you have the cord there it’s very out of the way). Here’s a picture of my freshman year dorm, you can see what I’m talking about: <a href=“http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-ash1/v42/73/93/10619381/n10619381_31114102_6372.jpg[/url]”>http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-ash1/v42/73/93/10619381/n10619381_31114102_6372.jpg&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I wouldn’t worry about the window thing cause as you can see, you can’t really see too well out of the window anyway with the hurricane shutters there. There’s really no other convenient place for the TV in those dorms.</p>