<p>Now that housing assignments are out, there seem to be a lot of people who are shocked, upset, and even terrified about the prospect of living in Hill. I do not blame you, I was in your shoes last year at this time. Practically every thread on this board has been somehow related to Hill, and people have asked questions about living there. I’m making this thread to consolidate information and give you as much information as I can in one post. If there are more questions, please feel free to ask.</p>
<p>Any ex-Hillies are welcome to answer questions that come up, but I do ask that if you answer someone’s question you at least lived in Hill for a year. I know that people who lived in the Quad had some limited exposure to Hill, but you can’t get the full Hill experience if you didn’t live there.</p>
<p>Finally, before you’ll find a link to my webshots at the bottom of this post. The link will take you to my album that shows my room in Hill. The captions for the photos there cover a lot of the basics about Hill rooms, so I encourage you to look at the photos and read the captions.</p>
<p>Now then… on with the show.</p>
<p>I. Hill College House
The building itself is over 40 years old, and was designed by a very famous architect. With all respect to this architect, the building of Hill is very ugly. It is a dark brown brick, laid unevenly to have some texture. The building is a large rectangle, with the main entrance on the side closest to the rest of campus. There are two types of windows that alternate by room. The first type is a wide rectangle, which has two openable windows on either end. The second type is a very tall but skinny rectangle, which is one piece and completely opens. The wide type is much better, as it lets in more light and gives you better climate-control options. There is no Air Conditioning. The building is surrounded by a spiky iron fence. Between the fence and the building is the “moat,” an inaccessible area that is just covered in low-lying vegetation. You will get to travel in the moat on your way out of the building everytime the annoying fire alarm goes off. To get into the building, you walk over the moat on a “drawbridge.” Legend has it that since the building was originally an all-female residence hall, the fence, moat, and drawbridge were designed to keep the men out.</p>
<p>II. Rooms
There are a few types of rooms. All Hill rooms are small, by far the smallest on campus. Most of the rooms are standard doubles. These rooms are for two people, and give you just enough space to live. Each side of the room has a large closet, in which you can store a lot of clothes and living supplies. If you use your space wisely, you can fit tons of stuff in the closet. After the closet are the beds. The beds are extra long twins. Under the beds are two dressers, which have two drawers each. You have about 5 inches of space on top of the dressers beneath the bed. Some people use this space, I only stored my N64 and controllers there. Behind the dressers you have between one and two feet before the wall, which I used to store large boxes and my suitcases. After the beds there is between two and three feet of space before the desks. This space is usually used for a lamp, shelves of some kind (yaffa blocks, milk crates, etc). In my room we had milkcrates and a TV on one side, and our refrigerator and microwave on the other side. We also fit a floor lamp on both sides. The rest of the space is for your desk. The desks have three large drawers, a small drawer (for a keyboard or papers), and two shelves for books. Most people put their printer on the lower shelf or under the desk in order to conserve space. This way you can have your computer on the desk and still have space to work at your desk if you want to. The rooms are small, but if you go into Hill thinking the rooms will be tiny, you will be pleasantly surprised with how much space you have to store things. Most people in my hall had been told time and time again that the rooms are tiny, so we expected the worst. Instead, during move-in, we found that we had plenty of space for things. See my pictures at the bottom to see what I’m talking about.</p>
<p>The two common types of single rooms are either small or large. The large rooms are the size of a double, but only have one person in them. There are not many of these, and some have a very wacky layout… such as those right in the middle of the sides of the rectangle. The small singles are found at the corners of the rectangle. These singles have huge closets when you first walk in, and then the standard desk, bed, and dressers. You have more options with this type of single. Some people take out their dressers and use them to put things on, other people leave them under the bed. It all depends on what you like. </p>
<p>GAs, UCBs, and House Managers have even larger singles scattered throughout the building.</p>
<p>III. GAs, UCBs, and House Managers
Each floor, shaped like a rectangle, is split up into “suites,” which are what are typically called “halls” in almost every other dorm in the country. Each suite has one Graduate Associate (GA… like your typical RA, only it will always be a grad student in Hill), one Upperclass Board member (UCB), and one House Manager. </p>
<p>GAs are the ones who look after everyone in the hall. They are responsible for keeping everyone in line, enforcing rules (quiet hours, no alcohol/illegal substances, etc), and organizing suite events (dinners, study breaks, etc). Most residents develop good relationships with their GAs because of the close bonds the suite will make throughout the year.</p>
<p>UCBs are upperclass students who… help run Hill, I guess. Hill is the only student-run college house on campus. Students control most aspects of the dorm, along with the House Dean and Faculty Master. I don’t really know what UCBs do, but our UCB last year was a very nice, quiet girl who was very fun to get to know. </p>
<p>Student Managers are upperclassmen who live in Hill and manage one of the parts of Hill House. As I said, Hill is student-run, so there are many work-study jobs available for students to take on in Hill. The Student Managers are the “bosses” in these various areas, and are reponsible for hiring students and keeping things running smoothly. </p>
<p>IV. Lounges/Common Spaces
Hill is a very social dorm, and when describing Hill the word “community” often comes up. This is because, in large part, of the common spaces in Hill. Hill has more common spaces than the rest of the college houses combined. There are usually 8 lounges per floor (less on the first two floors), four “interior” lounges that are found at the ends of the building, and four that are balcony lounges that overlook the atrium. Rumor has it that the architect made Hill rooms very small on purpose, in order to make students spend more time in the lounges where they would interact with each other and form stronger bonds. Whether or not this is true, that is exactly what happens. No one wants to spend long amounts of time in their rooms, so everyone is constantly out in the different lounges. It makes it very hard to get work done, but it does make you have lots of fun :)</p>
<p>The atrium is also a large common space. The center of it is cut out so that you can see down to the dining hall. It makes it very easy to look down below and see if your friends are eating, or how busy the dining hall is. It is also a good space to meet friends, take cell phone calls (probably the most common use of the atrium space as there are lots of benches and couches), or throw a football. In each corner there is a staircase leading up or down to the hallways. </p>
<p>On either end of the atrium up one floor are two large rooms. On one side is the Upper East Lounge, a social lounge that is rarely used. It has big leather couches and tables for doing work or reading. Movies are shown in the UEL every Thursday, and many other events are held up there as well. It stays open until 1 AM every night. On the other side is the Hill library, which has tables and cubicles to study on. This was my favorite place to study on campus, as it is always very quiet, you don’t have to walk anywhere to get there, and it is away from all distractions. It has a library-feel to it, despite not having any books. It is open 24 Hours, and gets very crowded around exam time. It also gets very warm in the fall, which is a negative (then again, the whole building is sweltering, so what’s the difference?)</p>
<p>The Underground, a floor below the dining hall, is also a common space. It has a big screen TV, pool tables, ping pong, darts, etc. It also has a mini-convenience store. The Underground is probably under-used, but it is nice to have when you want it.</p>
<p>To be continued on the next post…</p>