<p>Dana? What can you tell me? What are rooms like? How are they set up? How is it distance-wise from classes, food, library, and other main places on campus, what is the general tone of the dorm? Reputation -- what do people tend to think of with Dana//students in Dana? </p>
<p>The more details the better! Thanks!</p>
<p>My daughter lived in Dana for a semester after she came back from study abroad junior year. It's a good score for freshman housing.</p>
<p>It has self-contained halls and tends to be a fairly quiet dorm. One of the dorms where studying in the dorm is probably more feasible, as opposed to Willets where it makes more sense to go to the library after dinner.</p>
<p>The hallways are notorious for their mazelike shapes -- no where can you gaze down a long hall of doors. The kind of place where you are likely to get to know your small group of hallmates very well, but not see or hear large numbers of students like you would in Willets or to a slightly lesser extent Mertz.</p>
<p>It's set in the woods, surrounded by trees. Tends to be a little dark Just past Wharton and the tennis courts, it's convenient to Sharples dining hall, Tarble, Parrish, and the academic side of campus.</p>
<p>Upper class students will probably tend to be sophmores and juniors with a few seniors. Dana's probably not as popular in the lottery as Wharton, Worth, and Parrish for seniors with the highest lottery numbers. Quite desireable for sophmores and junior singles.</p>
<p>Dorm profiles and floorplans are here. One of the bathrooms on a floor will generally be designated for females and the other for males.</p>
<p>ID basically said it all. It's a pretty good location--not fabulously close to everything like Parrish or Wharton, but certainly not too far from anything, and unlike Mertz and the New Dorms, you don't need to walk up a steep hill to get to class. </p>
<p>In terms of reputation, Dana is the "good twin" (as opposed to Hallowell, a smoking dorm). It has a reputation as being more laid-back than the most social dorms, but certainly isn't always quiet. It has a great location, so it would be much more popular in the lottery if not for the poor design. The combination of mazelike hallways, poor lighting and cement-block walls make some people think it feels dreary. But it's actually not bad. Most of the Dana-ites I knew last year were pretty happy with it. </p>
<p>Freshman rooms are standard doubles, decent-sized. 3rd floor is women's housing, 2nd floor has gender-neutral rooms (but gendered bathrooms). You might occasionally run into a Danabug (little white caterpillar-esque things), more of them on the lower floors. </p>
<p>Dana is great freshman housing! You really have nothing to worry about.</p>
<p>They really need to get smoking out of all of the dorms and buildings at Swarthmore. </p>
<p>I cannot believe in 2008, there is still a smoking dorm, as mentioned above. It is a health and fire hazard!</p>
<p>Yeah, they really do need to get rid of smoking...several dorms still are smoking or have smoking halls, which is absolutely ridiculous to me.</p>
<p>Anyway, Dana's a lovely dorm, a lot of the doubles are pretty nice, and if you get an odd number you face the woods and get a gorgeous bay window. :] Hopefully this year the lounges will actually be lounges, since in past years the housing crunch has forced those to be rooms...</p>
<p>There are no smoking halls in non-smoking dorms. All dorm buildings are now either smoking or non-smoking in their entirety (except Strathhaven which is seven story condo building where Swarthmore offers real-world condo living for 18 students. Some floors are smoking, some non-smoking).</p>
<p>BTW, smoking is prohibited in any public space in a "smoking dorm". Smoking is only allowed in the student's room with the door closed.</p>
<p>As with most policies at Swarthmore, the College will change when the students decide to bring the issue to the forefront. It appears to me from a distance that Swarthmore students are a pragmatic bunch. A vote on non-smoking might not go as expected, despite an overwhelming majorty of non-smokers on campus. Just as Swatties see a benefit in the two frats keeping the beer pong champions out of their hair, there may be significant numbers of non-smoking Swatties who appreciate that offering a smoking dorm helps keep renegade smokers out of their dorms.</p>
<p>Of the available beds at Swarthmore, under 12% are in dorms where smoking is permitted.</p>
<p>I love the walk along the pathway from Sharples to Dana. It's one of those Swarthmore walks where everything is hidden from view until you round a corner or clear a clump of trees and a building pops into view.</p>
<p>D will be living in a single in Dana primarily due to its convenient location and a lousy lottery number. She is enthusiastic about the dorm in general.</p>
<p>Her single looks awfully small to me on the floor plan but typical for a Dana single. Any idea what the dimensions are or suggestions on how to cleverly furnish it? Are there elevators?</p>
<p>i was just going to ask what mommamia did. i was assigned to a single in dana as a transfer, and it looks small to me on the floor plan, too. i saw a double in dana, which appears to be double the size of my single, and THAT looked fairly small. i'm scared that i'll be living in something the size of a closet. anyone ever been in a dana single?</p>
<p>Dana doubles are actually pretty big...so if singles are half the size, they're certainly not closets. You'll have enough room for all the college furniture plus floor space, and there is absolutely no way to tell room size from a floor plan except in relation to other rooms, which is usually unhelpful.</p>
<p>Size wise, dana and hallowell have plenty of space, double or single. Dana is much more quiet than Hallowell is, but that can change depending on student makeup, though the all girls hall on the 3rd floor and the fact that hallowell is smoking tends to lend itself to more partying in hallowell.</p>