<p>What are the rooms like in the houses? Are they double, singles, or triples? Are they generally big or small? How many students per bathroom? Can you cook for yourself on the weekends in the kitchen? Are there study areas or do most students study in their rooms? Any comments or pictures would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>momofchris,
I think they're fairly average for collegedorms. My son is in a double. both beds are lofted. their desks are beneath the loft & strike me as being very big desks. There are bookshelves for both students. and there's a shared sink in the room & plenty of closet space. Enough so that my son has filled his drawers with packing peanuts(I can't quite figure out why..but he still has room to put all his stuff away too). There's also a sofa in the room. I understand students can cook on weekends, there are kitchens. My son has only made ramen something similar a few times. He usually buys food. And the food allowance that is included with room and board did cover the extra food he bought (he usually buys on campus on the weekends) And it seems there are sometimes free food events and my son even gets up for free breakfast when he hears of one. I don't have any good pictures of the room. The room he was in during rotation was laid out differently but about the same size. I think there are a few singles. But its the hovse system so I don't think one can request a single..each hovse seems to have its own system for picking rooms.</p>
<p>momofchris:</p>
<p>There are three types of housing on campus -- the North Houses, the South Hovses, and Avery. It sounds like oaklandmom's son is in a North House, which is what I lived in. All the houses include kitchens which are stocked with some cooking implements (mostly those left behind by previous residents).</p>
<p>The North Houses have only doubles. Some of the rooms have lofts (a platform raised about 6 feet above the floor, reached by a ladder, with two mattresses), others have bunk beds or regular beds. In my house, there were 4 mens bathrooms and 2 womens, and I'd imagine all the North Houses have a similar number. These each had two showers, two toilets, and two urinals (which we filled with potted plants in the girls' bathrooms). They're shared by ~50-60 guys and around ~15-25 girls. I rarely had a problem getting a shower stall, and I don't remember the guys complaining about problems either. As for storage, I had to be creative to fit everything in, but then I'm a girl, -- I never heard any of the guys complaining.</p>
<p>I'll leave someone else to talk in more detail about the South Hovses (which are newly rennovated) and Avery (which is just plain new). The South Hovses have singles, doubles and triples (though there are few triples, and these are large rooms which are usually highly prized). The distribution of singles varies by house. In some houses, the freshman get them, in others the seniors do, sometimes there's a mix.</p>
<p>or for a peak inside, check out some youtube videos
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y24erOgbag%5B/url%5D">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y24erOgbag</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p7SC6W7ycg%5B/url%5D">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p7SC6W7ycg</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xMa7ezg5nY%5B/url%5D">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xMa7ezg5nY</a>
the last one is actual the best as you get to see the hallway of one of the hovses and then a good view of a room. (or course watching the youtube videos also gives you a glimpse into life at caltech) there's also a fun video about interhovse but it doesn't show the inside of the rooms.</p>
<p>So Avery has singles, doubles, and (a few) triples. There are also three faculty suites for faculty/families to live in. The doubles are supposedly big compared to other doubles - I guess mine is just so messy I can't really tell :P Doubles also vary somewhat in size, although the rooms are pretty nice in general. </p>
<p>The singles are smaller, but I think the singles are still a bit large compared to South House singles. Although I can't say - I've only seen one (abnormally small) South House single and have had limited experience with Avery singles.</p>
<p>We have at least two triples though, and they are <em>really</em> big. The beds in Avery are all bunks, AFAIK, and have plenty of space between the top bunk and the ceiling. This is a marked contrast from the North House room I rotated out of...so in the North Houses, there are lofts, sky beds, and bunks. The bunks are fine. The lofts and sky beds however, have about two feet of space between "sleeping" and "smashing your head into pieces against the ceiling."</p>
<p>In the South Houses, the fire alarms go off somewhat frequently. Hopefully they'll fix that soon.</p>
<p>Yes, there are kitchens in each of the houses to cook in. The houses have a single large lounge/common area, a library, and usually several smaller lounge areas as well. I'm not sure how many students there are per bathroom, but I've never had to wait in line.
Room sizes, arrangments, and pick system vary drastically between the houses. For instance, in my house the upperclassmen have priority in picking rooms (as I imagine is the case with the other houses as well), but there is an alley of singles reserved for frosh.</p>
<p>I live in the North Houses (Llloyd). Something worth noting is that these doubles are much larger than your typical college double... I love the amount of space my roommate and I have.</p>
<p>I live in a South Hovse single. My Hovse has mostly singles, some doubles, and one triple. I'm in the smallest sized room in the Hovse (lol frosh) but it's still plenty of room for me. Instead of the lofts that the North Houses have, we have beds above our desks. </p>
<p>Also, our brand new kitchens are awesome. I actually cook on weekends now instead of eating out! The mods we were living in previously had one kitchen for the whole Hovse - now we have about one for every alley and a half or so. Saves a lot of money and cooking in groups can be just as fun as eating out. :)</p>
<p>Llama--I should come over and cook with you guys sometime, that would be a lot of fun. BTW it was very fun finding that our mutual friend A. (EE blacker frosh) knew captain planet and pokemon and was familiar with chip n dale... we sang them down in the dark depths of mooredor</p>
<p>Yes, you need to visit more. There's usually something interesting going on in our lounge.</p>
<p>A fun article about the hovse art work <a href="http://pr.caltech.edu/periodicals/CaltechNews/articles/v41/walls.html%5B/url%5D">http://pr.caltech.edu/periodicals/CaltechNews/articles/v41/walls.html</a></p>