Allen, 1 Ian Allen 2-25-14 English Section 1102-02 Hall Style Social Life The hall style dorms

on the University of North Carolina at charlotte are called high- rise buildings and are older structures that were built in the sixties. These dorms are four, eleven story tall buildings with a white exterior that looks like they have been well used. When entering the building it looks dated with tile floors, cinderblock walls and tile ceiling. It is air-conditioned with temperatures around seventy degrees. On the first floor is the main entrance to the building with a front desk. Off on the left side is an office and on the right side is an entertainment room. This room includes a television, Ping-Pong table, and some places to sit. The dorm rooms start on the second story of the building. The floors alternate male and female floors, with the second floor being female. The floors are grouped in pairs starting with floors two and three. The second floor is a square shape; it has a common sitting area in the middle of the floor with an office branching off from the common area. Then surrounding that are four hallways. These hallways are dimly lit, and have dorm rooms on the side of the hallway that faces outside of the building and a large bathroom on the opposite side. There are six rooms and one bathroom per hallway. Floor three is just like the floor below it minus the common area in the middle. This pattern continues all the way to the eleventh floor. The dorm rooms are carpeted with cinderblock walls and wooden furniture. Each room has two people assigned to it, with each person getting a desk, closet, and bed.

Allen, 2 With the way the dorm rooms and the buildings are set up, the layout will increase the level of socialization among student that live in the Sanford building. This is due to the fact that students have to interact with each other just by living there. Every room has two students living in them so any student must talk to their roommate. They do all their laundry in one room located in the basement, and they leave their doors open that lead to the hallway so that they can have easy conversation with the other people in their hall. What do I mean by being social? A student is being social if they interact with another student. They can be talking with a student, in a public area with other students, or have their door open to their room. This is how I determined how social students were throughout the building. As I walked through the buildings I noticed that there were always students in contact with each other. Students socialize by studying, talking, playing video games or, there could be a group of students in the entertainment room on the first floor of the building. Also student would choose to be social just simply by leaving their doors open in the hallway. This did change throughout the day depending on the time, but for the most parts people were talking with each other. Open door policy I saw student that were in their rooms would leave their door open during the afternoon hours mostly after class. I think this is a way for students to start adapting to college life. They will do this to meet new people and feel like they fit in to the campus. This was interesting because other students in the hall would stop by and say something like how did your test go or just a simple hey. It was as if the student with the open door was inviting others to feel free and come in. As students would get back from class

Allen, 3 more and more doors would be open, and soon an entire hallway would have all the doors open and people would be moving freely from room to room. Student would be asking question if they were studying for test, talking, or if there was a football game on yelling at each other from room to room about what the saw during the game. When it got late at night student would close their door and go to bed. This would repeat itself everyday for the most part. Some days might have a couple doors closed if students had a big test the next day, or if they were sleeping. The number of doors open would change daily depending on the time of day and what the students needed to do. But most of the days students would have their doors open. Sanford 3rd Floor Open Doors Day 1 Wednesday Hall 1 Hall 2 Hall 3 Hall 4 2 0 1 4 Day 2 Thursday 6 4 5 2 Day 3 Friday 5 0 3 6

This table shows the maximum number of doors open at any time that day.

The chart When strolling through the different hallways throughout the building I looked to see if certain halls had more doors open then others. What I found is that every hall was different. Some were a close-knit group of friends that had known each other since before college or have just became friends over the semester, while other halls were quiet

Allen, 4 with little or no doors open. Now this did change from floor to floor but this data represents the third floor in Sanford. I used this data because I saw the most difference in the amount of doors open. I went three days in a row and looked to see if there was a pattern from night to night on the third floor of Sanford Hall. Three of the halls were quit a bit more social than hall number two. It seemed that hall two was not as close as the other halls. Both Wednesday and Friday they did not have any doors open. But even though they did not seem very social for those two days on Thursday they were like any other hall on the floor and had most of their doors open. The other three halls were pretty social any time I went there. For all the halls the door count was low to zero open doors in the morning but I think this was because this is a college building and people were either at class or sleeping. In the afternoon and the evening is when most of the doors on the third floor are open. Students were talking with one another and going from room to room. The days of the week also played a role in how many doors were open. From the chart you can see that Thursday had the most doors open out of the three. This could be due to the fact that for some students Thursday night is the start of their weekend. Student that do not have anything to do the next day tend to socialize more, than students with Friday classes, Thursday night. Students also go home for the weekend on Friday so that may be why the door count is up on Thursday and lower on Friday. Wednesday does have doors open but they were lower than Thursday. This is simple due to students having class, homework, and other responsibilities that happen in the middle of the week. So there are many factors that must be looked into when looking to see why student open their doors and certain days rather than others.

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Interview In the interview I asked a student a series of questions that would help see if my observations are right. I asked the student if he leaves his door open and he said yes. Then I asked what time most people leave their doors open and he said the afternoon to evening hours of the day. This shows that for the most part students will leave their doors open after class or when the actually get up for the day. When students leave their door open I wondered if it was normal for others to walk in and talk. This student said that normally it is ok for a person to walk in to a room if you are on good terms with that person. Students that leave their door open are making an effort to be social and for other students on that hall they have to walk past the open door to get to their room. When they walk past an open door they are much more likely to stop and talk to that person than if the door was closed. Then I asked him if he thought living in the high-rise building has made him more sociable and he said that it helped him meet new people that otherwise he would not have talked to. So I say yes, the hall style living has made him more social and meet new people. He moved in at the beginning of the semester and everyone on the hall got to know each other. Then I tried to gage how social he really was with other students. I asked the question, does he talk to others on different floor, or hall or does he just stay with the people on his hall. His response was that he did talk to other people on other floors, but he did not interact with people on the other three hallways on his floor. This means that for the most part students would get to know the people on their halls because they see them pretty much everyday. But other students may move more freely from

Allen, 6 floor to floor if they knew people on a certain floor. I asked if he knew the other people on his hall and he said yes, then I asked if he felt like the other students on his hallway are social and he also said yes. He said that everyone on his hall know each other and are friends with each other to some point or another. Halls in the Sanford dorm tend to know be similar, everybody has at least met once and they know each others names. This interview supports what I think about hall style dorms increase the amount of how social students are, and it supports what I have observed.

People have to interact with each other Students that live in this style of dorm must interact with each other. There is less privacy in this style of dorm than in suite style. They share a bathroom, room, and common sitting areas all around Sanford so no one person could just stay in their room. But some students are just more social than others. The hall style layout increases how social students are with other students. Being social in college will help you work well with others, and helps students adapt to their new way of living. Whether it is passing one another in the hallway or elevator, or doing laundry in the basement of the building. All of these places in the building are points where students interact with each other. Another way students socialize with each other is through their residential advisor. These are non- freshmen students that help run whatever building they live in. They normally have meeting at the beginning of each semester just to go over any new news or the rules of the building. This will give students the opportunity to see each other and talk. Students will get to know one another from these meeting that may prompt them to leave their door open and meet new people that they might not have before the meeting.

Allen, 7 Students also have to be social with at least one person, their roommate. Since each room has two students, it is a fact that they have to talk to each other. It may be a positive interaction or negative but either way they must interact. Conclusion Students that live in hall style dorms are forced to socialize with each other. Just simple by the way the buildings are set up have that affect. Friends will be made if you stay in a hall style dorm on the campus of UNC Charlotte. Everything that is done in the building forces students to interact with one another, it may be doing laundry, watching TV, or studying for a test with a group of people. Depending on the time and day students will interact with each other differently and depending on what the student must do on a day-to-day base, they will be more social. Not every student is the same and whether a student is a very social person or not a hall style set up of the building makes those students interact with each other. There is no way you can just keep to yourself when you live in a high-rise building. Students living in Sanford always are around each other. They study, and relax together mostly because that is the way the building is set up.

Allen, 8 Work Cited Smith, Cory M. "Hall Style Dorm." Personal interview. 21 Feb. 2014. Interview: Cory Smith 2-22-14 Questions: Do you leave your door open? What time of day do most people leave their door open? Do you feel like living in a hall style dorm has made you more social? Do you feel like when some one leaves their door open they are inviting you in? Do you feel like everyone in your hall knows each other? Do you socialize with just your hall or other floors or halls? Response: 1. I normally do leave my door open. 2. People seem to leave their doors open during midday and the evening the most often. 3.I feel like it has made me more social because I have met many people that I otherwise would not have. 4. If you on good terms with the person then yes, it is normally okay to just enter their room. 5. I feel like for the most part everybody knows each other in the dorm. 6.I myself do with some other floors as for other halls I normally just stay in mine.

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