<p>For any current students, what is the general opinion on the “quiet hall” dorm option at Brown? I am considering signing up for that on my new student housing questionnaire, but I am not sure if it is right for me. I would describe myself as mildly shy but friendly, who wants a college dorm experience without crazy hallmates. I don’t want a strictly silent, antisocial hall full of “socially challenged” students, but I want an environment where I know that I can go to bed and study without distractions. Is quiet hall right for me, or would I be fine in normal housing?</p>
<p>i signed up for quiet. I was considering the same things as you are, i didnt want to be stuck with a bunch of kids that are antisocial. But at the same time, I want to keep the madness away from my room so that I have somewhere to escape to. I’m sure that regular floors are fine, but i decided not to risk finding out otherwise. So I say come join me</p>
<p>Nope, they aren’t antisocial from what I saw. I mean, it was Spring Weekend and most of the college was busy getting high/drunk but instead I played some pretty intense Boggle with Perkins kids and then some of us later went to a frat party and chilled there.</p>
<p>Freshmen are friendly in general. No worries. There is a little bit of judgement from people who shouldn’t care, if you disclose this. However, it might be nice to sleep somewhere that is quiet while you can go to other floors for loud times.</p>
<p>Also, many people who don’t sign up for quiet hall get placed there. So even less worries! :)</p>
<p>I’m a 2nd floor Perkinite, and I tend to just hang out on the ground floor or first floor. If you don’t click well with the people on the quiet floor, you could always just hang out in the lounge, or someone else’s kitchen. If you make a conscious effort to travel down (which many 3rd floor people do, but most don’t) you’ll be friends with the lounge people.</p>
<p>I don’t know how quiet housing works in other dorms, if there even is more quiet housing. However, if you choose quiet you’ve probably got a 75% chance of living in Perkins next year. Something to consider. I love Perkins. Many (especially people in Hope or Littlefield) say they wouldn’t want to live here, though.</p>
<p>Hope resident here! As chsowlflax said, if you request quiet housing, you’ll most likely be placed in Perkins. I’ve heard really great things about Perkins from the people who live there (tight community, etc.). However, the thing to keep in mind is that Perkins is pretty far from the main campus, which mean you’ll usually have a 10-15 minute walk to class every day. Granted, I live in Hope, which is right on the Main Green, so I’m a bit spoiled in that sense. However, if the distance bothers you, it’s something to keep in mind.</p>
<p>chsowlflax17, did you request quiet housing or substance free? </p>
<p>What is the situation with substance-free housing? My son said he is considering that. I have read it is largely in Perkins, but is there anything else about it that is useful to know?</p>
<p>My freshman year, there was additional substance free housing in East Andrews. I did so for 3 semesters, and I will next year as well. People in that tend to be sociable enough, though I don’t have problems with drinking and now have a group of friends I like to be around, even when they’re a bit tipsy, so I’ve gotten to the point where substance free doesn’t feel necessary to me. It is nice to share a community with like-minded people as a freshman, though don’t be surprised if some of the people on the floor do drink, just not in the room.</p>
<p>I requested sub free. If you request both, you’ll get one or the other, because they don’t do both sub free and quiet floors. I know some people on my floor who did not request it, but generally people are respectful enough not to have alcohol or other substances on the floor itself.</p>
<p>I, like most people here, don’t actually have a problem with drinking or substance use (though there are some on my floor who do). I just don’t want to feel pressured into doing it. Turns out, for the most part, you’re not pressured: people have been extremely respectful of my choices when I say I’d rather not drink. I know people who are substance free in regular dorms, and it doesn’t seem like it’s much of a problem. The people here tend to let others do their own thing, whatever that is.</p>
<p>Although I myself am not substance free, I have sub free friends (most of whom live in regular housing) who have never had a problem with being pressured to drink or do drugs. Unless you feel uncomfortable being around people who are under the influence (which, to be honest, is a reality of college life that you’re going to witness regardless of where you live), I would say that living in regular housing won’t pose any problems. People at Brown are very tolerant and will respect your choices.</p>
<p>This is an old thread, but I thought I’d offer my two cents.</p>
<p>I requested sub-free but messed up my housing questionnaire and ended up in regular housing. But a stroke of luck, my roommate did the same thing, and even though we ended up on a hall that had its fair share of drunken parties, there were no substances in our room the whole year.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, after a few weeks I realized that I didn’t care about sub-free housing. About half my friends drink and/or smoke on a regular basis, but most of the rest are either mostly or entirely sub-free (many of whom live in regular housing). Obviously, it varies from person to person, but I don’t mind being around my friends when they’re drunk or high so long as I can leave when I feel like it. People are respectful of my choices, and I’ve never been pressured to do something that makes me uncomfortable. With the exception of a few frat hazing incidents, I’ve never heard of anyone else being pressured, either.</p>
<p>That’s not to say that sub-free is pointless. I know a lot of people on the sub-free floors of Perkins and Champlin, and they all loved it. It’s great not to worry about stepping on vomit when you come back to your dorm on a Saturday night. If you don’t want to drink (or just don’t want to be around people who are), then sub-free is a good choice. But if you don’t choose it, even if you are sub-free, you’ll probably be fine.</p>
<p>Update on my housing decision:</p>
<p>I decided to go with regular housing, and not quiet. It was a tough decision, but I feel that I wouldn’t get the “college experience” in quiet housing. I am a pretty heavy sleeper, and hopefully can either sleep through the noise, or take part in it.</p>
<p>Likely a good choice. My daughter did sub-free freshman year in Perkins, just cause she didn’t know what to expect and didn’t want to be midst of craziness, but just didn’t click with the people on the floor at all. She ended up hanging with people on other floors all the time. Some kids did go on and pick roommates from the floor to continue subfree housing with sophmore, so obviously works out well for some. She wouldn’t do it again. Had a much more enjoyable situation in a 4 person suite the next year.</p>
<p>I recently read an article called “Brown’s Drinking Problem” [Brown?s</a> Drinking Problem](<a href=“http://thebrownspectator.com/drinking-problem-brown-university-abstention-breeds-ostracism/]Brown?s”>http://thebrownspectator.com/drinking-problem-brown-university-abstention-breeds-ostracism/)
which made it sound like when you choose sub-free other students treat you like you have a rare and particularly unpleasent disease. Could any of you Brown students comment of this? Are the attitudes towards sub-free really so negative?</p>
<h1>a: that article’s three years old. The author graduated this year. I don’t know what the situation with sub-free/quiet housing was her year, but my year (I requested sub-free, and was housed on the 2nd floor of Perkins), there really didn’t seem to be much of a problem at all. I can’t speak to those who got housed elsewhere, but I have multiple sub-free friends who didn’t live on the sub-free floor, but who aren’t pressured to drink nor viewed as “weird.” Maybe that speaks to my social circles rather than the Brown community as a whole, but I doubt it.</h1>
<p>Are there people who think of the sub-free kids as “strange”? Yes. But there are many reasons to be labeled “strange” here, and in general people don’t care (on both sides). I was not viewed as strange: one of the problems with perceptions was that many of the sub-free-ers didn’t move much from the second floor, meaning their community consisted primarily of kids who were also sub-free (by choice, not design). If people don’t interact with people from the sub-free floor, they’re going to wonder what’s going on there. That’s natural. People in general have that opinion of Perkins, because it’s farther than most dorms, so they never set foot in it. Doesn’t mean much for the people who live there, just hearing “Oh, Perkins? That’s so far away” when they tell people where they live (and again: it’s far away for Brown, which is not very far at all, considering the size of our campus).</p>
<p>I disagree with this author’s views on drinking at Brown, but what was true for her class may not be true for mine. I really don’t know.</p>
<p>Since I did not live in sub-free housing this year, I can’t comment on the sub-free community from an insider’s standpoint. However, I had a number of friends on the sub-free floor of one freshman dorm and spent a fair amount of time there in my first few months.</p>
<p>For the most part, the floor was very close, even insular. While many of them had friends who lived elsewhere, the group tended to spend a lot of time together on their floor. Consequently, the floor became a true community (at least from my perspective), with all the ups and downs of a small group. By second semester, they had begun to drift, especially as people found interests and activities and made new friends. However, they still remained a happy group, and a number of them are living together next year.</p>
<p>As far as I know, they weren’t stigmatized for being sub-free. In fact, I haven’t heard of anything like that at Brown. What’s more a problem is when a floor shuts out other potential friendships in an effort to preserve the community that they’ve found in their living environment. This can happen on any sort of floor, sub-free or otherwise. The most “exclusive” (and that word is too strong) floor I heard about was in regular housing.</p>
<p>I want to bring this thread back!</p>
<p>&& If I want a sub-free floor/hall will I end up in Perkins (I like Perkins but its far >.<)</p>
<p>No, you won’t necessarily be in Perkins. Other sub-free halls this year existed in Champlin, Morris, and Keeney, among a few other places.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine the sub-free hall in Keeney haha…</p>
<p>I believe it’s in a relatively removed part of Keeney.</p>