<p>The first thing I learned in my dormitory experience at SUNY Albany was that I am neither capable of concentrating nor falling asleep through any sort of noise. This is a huge problem for me since I prefer to do my work early in the morning and need to get to sleep very early if I want to be at all productive then. I have tried operating on more normal work schedules, but I simply do not focus well past 4pm, even in quiet environments, so study areas like the performance hall's green room, while absolutely silent, will thus not work for me so long as I can't sleep in them. I have had to switch out of two doubles already since I couldn't sleep through their snoring coinhabitants, and in my current off-campus 24/7 quiet hours building, I neighbor the only room that emits noise past 8pm, and can hear it quite clearly through the walls. Typical solutions to this problem do not work for me, and the only solution I see is living in a silent area; hearing protectors give me headaches, earplugs give me ear infections, tapestry and carpeting don't work well enough, I can't sleep through ambient/generated noise, and moving hasn't fixed anything as of yet, and I am getting tired of playing the housing of dice trying to get a quiet room with no guarantee of success beyond the mere probability that I will have to get a quiet area eventually. I'm trying to get this noisy neighbor of mine evicted right now, which is difficult considering that the only noises he makes (music from computer speakers and frequent conversations with friends) would not be considered by most to be loud enough to merit eviction (and rightfully so. It's an impossible argument to make, even given how thin the walls are. Were I an RD, I would certainly not buy it), but it is very bothersome to me, and I really don't want to have to deal with this crap ever again in my life, especially during my college years. I am willing to do anything, and switching schools is definitely on the table. While I understand residential experiences are very much an anecdotal matter, I am interested in hearing from people who have had this problem and what they did/where they studied in order to remedy it.
<strong><em>The most immediate solution to me seemed to be transferring to BYU; I honestly have no interest whatsoever in sex, drugs, partying, or social life in general (this isn't social anxiety; I devote my life solely to lurking, reading, and sleeping not because I am afraid of human interaction, but because it is all I like to do, and have little interest in other things), so the Honor code actually works in my favor, and am apathetic enough to the affairs of other people that the school religion wouldn't clash too violently with my atheism. The only problems I saw were that 1) the religious views of the faculty would hurt my education, especially since in current my field of study, Philosophy, religion is relevant, and religious faculty are far afield from the mainstream, and 2) the religious study requirement would eat up credit hours I would rather put to better use. Input from BYU students would be appreciated. (</em></strong> indicates that the following insanity is only a thought experiment the author opted to use to indicate the parameters he needs satisfied and sacrifices he is willing to make, since he thought they would be better expressed by the reputation of a school and the imagination of the reader than through his own words, and that it is not meant to be taken by the reader as a serious indication of interest from the author of going to BYU, unless one can convince him it is his best option)
In truth I don't much care where the school is, what its cost is (within reason) or what it is known for so long as it has quiet housing. As previously stated, off-campus housing is fine with me; if anyone had problems with noisy dorms and found good off-campus housing somewhere, tell me about it! All I want is to get an idea of what could work for me with some anecdotal guarantee of certainty.
I was in the middle of the pack in terms of SUNY Albany student stats, and have not really improved in my time at the school. I am not a terrible student, and I would even say I do very well in my optimal working conditions, however, as I am currently in their absence, I will have to set SUNY Albany standards as my cutoff point for quiet housing anecdotes and recommendations.</p>