<p>Fallen, now that circumstances have changed for our family :), I view sub-par dorms as a character builder!! LOL. It will make them appreciate better digs when they get them. I am not a fan of bugs but I did share an apartment with them in my own college days and I lived!</p>
<p>People need to keep in mind that roaches simply live in New Orleans. The same is true with lizards and mosquitos as well as many other animals. If students keep food contained and their rooms clean it will help minimize the problem for that specific locale. One of the reasons Louisiana calls itself ‘the sportsman’s paradise’ is due to the rampant wildlife. One of the reasons for the rampant wildlife is the sheer number of insects on which birds and the like can feed. The city never really gets cold enough to kill off the bugs. New Orleans is in a tropical environment with all of the problems (and perks) of a tropical environment. </p>
<p>Dorm-wise, as Fallen has listed, several may or do need to be replaced. The problem is you can’t tear down all of those at one time. You have to keep enough up and running to fill the housing need. TU also didn’t want to have multiple dorms torn down while it was also building a brand new UC and business school among other buildings. If the campus had done all of the construction that I’ve seen happen over the last 15 years or so at once, it would have looked like 1940’s Europe. It’s simply not a large enough campus to do that.</p>
<p>People (myself certainly included) just get a little tired of the onslaught of negativity written about the city as well as the university. I’m a New Orleanian and can tell you it’s one thing to hear my neighbor complain about crime. It’s an entirely different story when someone who went to New Orleans once 5 years ago for a weekend pretends to be an expert on the crime problem in New Orleans. (Which is grossly overblown by the way.) Zai’s comments, though no where near as disparaging, comes across as the same ilk.</p>
<p>And again it’s one thing if someone tries to ‘be local’ and talk about how when they were in the city they rode the “trolley” everywhere as the ‘locals do’. We locals just smile and realize the person enjoyed the STREETCAR and appreciates the romanticized version of our hometown. It’s sort of New Orleans’ version of the ‘I love New York’ t-shirts.</p>
<p>It’s another thing when the national media said the city should be abandoned and moved to another location RIGHT after Katrina and so very few so much as batted an eye at the comments. </p>
<p>None of this is really about Zai’s comment as an isolated, honest comment/complaint. It’s all in presentation as they say. I agree 100% with Fallenchemist’s last point that with all of the derision aimed at TU and Nola on CC, you have be careful on a public forum about how you describe things. My guess is since Zai was commenting on dorms for future Tulane students, Zai was merely trying to help out parents and HS kids in their decision about where to live once they get here. The problem is the presentation might scare away potential students or parents from considering the school before they visit.</p>
<p>Thanks Ben, I think you said it better than I did. You are right, that is what my point was. Perception is reality has become clich</p>
<p>On many campuses they don’t tear down and start over, but rather upgrade/remodel the dorms. I would imagine it has to do with cost, space, time frames, etc. I don’t know what TU’s long term housing plan is, but I thought I remembered seeing something about plans to build more dorms, residential style, I think, over on the Newcomb side (my s said it would be convenient for the students to stumble to/from the Boot more easily, LOL). So if they plan to build more dorms, they will have to complete those befoe remodeling/replacing the older dorms.</p>
<p>Agree too with benedote and FC, that while it is fine to raise concerns and even criticism, it is all in how you say it. I have to admit I was surprised to hear Zaichev say how happy she is at TU, given her rant about the bugs, noise, the city, people, etc. Those of us with kids there or who live there do take issue with such a negative slant. Agreed, its certainly not perfect. If you want to see a rant, read my old thread about the ripoff charge for the small stain on DS’s fresh. yr dorm carpet at move out. I was not pleased, to say the least, but they did work with me to reduce the carge from outrageous ($100) to ridiculous ($60), LOL.</p>
<p>I went to grad school in FL. Didn’t matter how clean we kept our apt, we still had palmetto bugs, which are HUGE, gross cockroach things. It just is what it is in warm, humid climates. I guess its one of the inconveniences- but better than digging out of the snow for months and months (and this is from a born and raised NYer).</p>
<p>So listen to the concerns from current students, but keep it in perspective. I asked my s about the pile driving (he lives in Mayer). He said “Yeah its right behind me”. That was all he said. Now that said, he could probably sleep through a nuclear explosion, so I take his nonchalant response with a grain of salt. I am sure it would drive me buggy (pun intended) like it could have when we were skiing at Steamboat last year. Fortunately we were warned (like the shout out here) not to rent a place right by the new construction. We did. Had a blast. But it ended up that there wasnt much noise from piledrivers- the economy last year also slowed down those piledrivers at Steamboat…</p>
<p>Was reading the Staff Advisory Council minutes <a href=“http://tulane.edu/sac/upload/SAC-Minutes-12-10-2009.doc[/url]”>http://tulane.edu/sac/upload/SAC-Minutes-12-10-2009.doc</a>
Looks like the construction on that Res college just began Dec 15, and the dorm is expected to be completed in Aug. 2011. The loud noises necesary to get the foundation set should hopefully be short lived (November minutes said the pile driving should be over in February-- so hopefully thats soon!) Definitely shouldn’t be an issue for incoming students next fall.</p>
<p>*** EDIT***
just found THIS:
</p>
<p>Do we know Zaichev is female? All along I was picturing her a him.</p>
<p>I have not lived in NOLA but I did live in the Houston area, which has a similar climate. I lived in a nice condominium and a in loft in Galveston at various times. I also knew many very wealthy people who had quite nice houses. No one was free of cockroaches! We even had regular professional exterminators scheduled. They just come with the territory.</p>
<p>We used to say, “You have never seen a real (Texas) cockroach until you’ve seen one run across your kitchen floor carrying a grapefruit in its mouth.”</p>
<p>LOL, idad. Maybe those cockroaches were really butlers?? Ald its the bugs AND the pest control exterminators that come with the territory :)</p>
<p>Vitrac-
Fallenchemist is the one who mentioned upthread, in post # 18, that Zaichev is a “she”. Perhaps the assumption was made based on this post <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063948357-post1.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063948357-post1.html</a></p>
<p>It was based on her post about gender guests during Mardi Gras. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/tulane-university/851491-mardi-gras-visitors-can-opposite-gender-family-members-come.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/tulane-university/851491-mardi-gras-visitors-can-opposite-gender-family-members-come.html</a></p>
<p>
Am I misreading that? I think the tendency to assume male is because it sounds and looks a little like Zach.</p>
<p>Pile driving update (probably the first time I’ve ever typed or said that) :It looks like the project is supposed to take 6 weeks. Since that’s the official Tulane statement, I’d double that. 
So it will be done within 12 weeks, well before the fall semester.
[Crews</a> begin pile driving for newdorm - thehullabaloo.com](<a href=“Unavailable”>Unavailable)</p>
<p>I agree completely with Benetode. I’m a freshman at TU, living in Wall, and the truth of Tulane is that nothing (really, nothing) is ever done on time. McAlister Place took like 2 months longer than they projected, and that was just a road. </p>
<p>As someone who watches the construction going on at campus, I can honestly say I’ve only seen the new residential college being worked on a few times. 7 days a week must be an exaggeration, and projected 6 weeks of pile driving is a joke. Zaichev is right in giving a heads up to incoming freshmen- construction here can go on indefinitely;and like everything at Tulane- it’s ridiculous to charge what they do for what’s provided. I mean our central air/heat was broken for 3 days, and when I say ‘our’, I mean all the dorms.</p>
<p>LOL. Does anyone know of any construction projects that finish on time? Thats why they often build in penalties for late completion. We recently did a kitchen/bath remodel at our house. It was supposed to take 6 mos- it took 9, and they can’t blame the weather for our inside construction! That said, I do agree that TU does seem to be laid back when it comes to many things. But construction on college campuses is a sign of progress, and a way of life. Its going on on virtually every campus in our city, was going on at my older s’s college when he was there, etc.</p>