Dorm review: East Neighborhood: Holmes Hall

Hello!

This is another post in a series that I'm trying to do on the dorms of Michigan State University. Today, I'm working on reviewing the last residence hall in East Neighborhood, Holmes Hall. I also did a review on Hubbard and Akers.

I did not live in Holmes, but I spent a LOT of time there first semester as one of my close friends lived there. Holmes Hall is known as the home of Lyman Briggs College, which is a residential college focusing on science and math majors. Usually, you have to be accepted into Lyman Briggs College to live there, although my friend was only there because her roommate was an LB student.

And actually, this dorm post will have no pictures. The dorm is set up the EXACT same way as Hubbard Hall, so if you want to see what it will look like, take a look at the Hubbard post. Everything is the same, the beds, the closet and shelf, the dresser, the mirror, the desks, the modular shelves. This will mostly be a review on Holmes Hall itself.

I disliked Holmes Hall the most out of any of the dorms that I visited. It had an odd smell in it (although I suppose if you're a Lyman Briggs student, you're used to it. And it's probably because of dissections and chemistry and stuff, but still). I hated the dining hall. It was where I had my racist experience. It was far away from Hubbard (okay, not really, but it was far enough away that I complained like crazy for having to walk over to visit my friend).

The dorms: Like I said, they are exactly like the Hubbard dorms. There's six floors. My friend lived on the sixth floor, which was supposedly haunted (although I never met anyone/thing coming down at 3AM).

The dining hall: I wasn't very fond of it (to put it mildly). They are the only dining hall in East Neighborhood to serve late night (which means they're open until midnight). They have Today's Features, which has different foods each day; Levels, which has pizza (usually cheese, pepperoni, and then a special one) and made-to-order sandwiches (those are to die for. That is the only reason that I ever agreed to eat at Holmes); Origins, which has made-to-order waffles and omelets in the morning, and vegetarian stir fry at lunch and night; Mosaic, which has smoothies and parfaits and Halal entrees.

The rest of it: Since Holmes Hall is home to Lyman Briggs, there are a lot of classrooms in it. It also has a Sparty's Express, which is a much, much smaller version of the Sparty's in Hubbard and doesn't have a grill or fryer--it's more like a convenience store, so you can still get your Combo-X-Change there.

They have two study lounges, which are actually pretty nice. The study lounges are very comfortable and I did spend quite a bit of time in them.

Overall, chances are that if you're in Holmes, you're a Lyman Briggs student so none of my issues with the dorm will bother you. Otherwise, if you're trying to switch dorms, I would stay away from Holmes.

Go green!
Rakuzen

Dorm Review: East Neighborhood: Akers Hall

Hello!

This is part of a series that I've begun, since I know that a lot of people are starting to figure out their dorm assignments and want to take a look at what their dorm looks like. (I know that the official assignments aren't out yet, because they come out in August. But like I mentioned in my Hubbard Hall review, if you check StuInfo, then they'll have posted a room to your account. They say that this is not the official room (and a lot of people that I know had their rooms changed) because it's for billing purposes, but it's always nice to check and get a little bit excited. My assignment was right, but I did end up switching out.) I will only be doing a few of the dorms, the ones that I have personal experience, but if you want to request your dorm, leave a comment and I'll find some friends who lived there. I will probably do East Neighborhood (Akers, Holmes, Hubbard), South Neighborhood (Case, Wonders, Holden, Wilson), River Trail Neighborhood (Owen, McDonel, VanHoosen), and Yakeley.

Note, I did not personally live here. I was assigned to this dorm, but I ended up switching out. However, one of my friends lived here and I visited the room often, so I can give a little bit of insight but not a lot of pictures.

Akers is special, because it is the only suite-style dorm on campus. Four people live in the room, the bathroom is inside the dorm (as opposed to sharing with another room like in Hubbard, or a community bathroom), and there is a tiny "living room" in the dorm.

The first picture that I have of Akers is from the LiveOn site. When I was first searching my dorm last summer, I found this picture, but I can't seem to find it on the site. This is just a floor plan that shows you, basically, what it looks like. There's two "bedrooms," that have two beds and a dresser in each, with a mirror. In the floor plan, the beds are lofted, so there's more space. My friend had his beds end-to-end, so it was kind of cramped. The desks can move around, too, so they had their desks in the bedroom which meant they had to jump on the beds to get around. 

It has four "closet" style areas, which you can see in the picture is across from the bedrooms. The closet areas have a pole and a shelf above it, which actually provides a lot of space. 

MSU has virtual tours on the bedroom, bathroom, and living room of Akers now, so I won't bore you with the details of the room. If you click the link, you can go through a virtual tour and see how other people set it up. Although, as I look at the virtual tour, make sure that you notice the yellow wall that divides the two bedrooms. At first glance, it might look like it's not there and that the room is huge, but the wall is there. 

Now that there's some pictures, I'll do a review on the rest of Akers. Akers was, apparently, remodeled. The inside is super nice. Both East and West Akers have a study lounge area with tables and chairs that is really nice and comfortable. The walls are gorgeous on the first floor. There are classrooms and there's a full computer lab, which is nice. 

I spent a lot of time in that cafeteria, because the food is decent--better than Akers, but not as good as some of the other dorms. It has three stations; Bamboo, which serves "Asian" food like sushi and a made to order wok meal of the day (as in, Ramen one day, Moo Shu Pork another, etc.), Publisher, which serves sandwiches and wings, and Today's Features, which is just a hot line with different food every day. It has two lines of salad bars, and a dessert area. Akers dining hall is beautiful because it has windows along half of one of the walls, where you can look out at people walking to class and the beautiful grass and trees. 

Overall, Akers is decent. I didn't want to live in a suite-style room though, so I didn't live there. The dining hall is pretty okay sometimes (I know, high praise). The study rooms are nice, as is the study lounge. 

Hope this helped. If I scrounge up any pictures from my friends' experience, I'll be sure to update the post! 

Go green! 

Rakuzen

Dorm items! Part 3: Bedding

Back again!

In case you're new, this post is part of a series that I'm posting on dorm items, specifically for Michigan State students. I'm obviously not an authority and this doesn't have everything you need for the dorms, but these are items that worked for me and my friends. As an introduction to each post, I'll write a little bit about what Michigan State offers for each section. Note, these aren't affiliate links and you don't have to buy them through these links. I just use them so that you can get an idea of the items and comparison shop, or if you happen to find a good deal, so you can snatch it up as you prepare for dorm living.

Today, I'll do a short post on bedding. MSU has twin XL beds on a loftable frame. What this means (in case you don't know. I didn't really know, since I've never had the choice to loft my bed or not) is that you can loft your bed so that it is higher. Just guessing, but I'd say it lofts to be about 8-10' high. It's enough to put shelves or a minifridge or a futon underneath, so it goes pretty high. (In most of them, anyways. When I was at Yakeley, the bed lofted a little bit lower, but my friends were still able to put their desks underneath.)

On move-in day, I had my cousin loft my bed for me, but I didn't like it. Since I was on the first floor of Hubbard, my ceiling was pretty high (and I'm pretty short), so I didn't have any problems with hitting my head on the ceiling. But the "steps" on the bed are wooden and really painful to step on, so I ended up having my friend unloft my bed, which put it at about 4' high. Still high enough for me to put my boxes underneath, but I had to move my minifridge.

MSU uses twin XL bedsheets, which is kind of inconvenient. Just remember that, while twin XL sheets will fit on twin size beds, twin size sheets will not fit on twin XL beds. So, unless you happen to have a twin XL bed at home, you'll probably have to buy new sheets. When it comes closer to move-in day, stores will start to stock college dorm supplies, and usually they'll have sheet sets to fit your bed. Otherwise, check out Target or Bed Bath and Beyond.

If you don't want to buy sheets, they have a program at MSU where you can get a free linen package every week. It's all white linens and includes a fitted sheet, a sheet, pillowcase, and two towels. Obviously, if you feel like decorating your room and coordinating your linens and whatever, this isn't ideal for you. I used this though, and it's really convenient and nice because you don't have to drag your bedding to the laundry room every week, and you can exchange it weekly for clean sheets. And it's free!

I would highly, highly, highly recommend buying a mattress protector. This is the exact same one that I bought. They re-use the mattresses after "cleaning them" but really, there are so many dorms on campus and a lot of work to be done over the summer, so you never know how well they clean them. I wiped my mattress down with some Clorox wipes and then put on this mattress protector. It's very cheap and it provides a good barrier between you/the sheets and the mattress. And if you don't use the linen package or have backup sheets, it's good to use if your sheets are in the wash and you're ready to sleep.

My roommate had this mattress pad. It was very comfortable, especially because the mattresses in the dorms are really firm, bordering on hard. It was easy to clean and made the beds a lot nicer, but I didn't bother with one because I didn't have a problem with the beds. But if you're not used to firm beds, or if you get there and find that you're having trouble sleeping, a mattress pad could definitely help you. I know a lot of my friends had one. Just make sure you get one in twin XL!

One of my friends had this bedside organizer because her bed was lofted. It was really cool! I thought about buying something like this when I was planning on what to pack over the summer, but ultimately didn't buy it. But since the bed is so high and it's such a pain to climb back down to put away your glasses or cell phone or whatever, this organizer was super efficient. (Since I'm not efficient, I would have to crawl under my bed every day to pick up my glasses or whatever dropped through the crack.)

My roommate bought a heated blanket during the black Friday sales since the room became super cold in the winter, but that's not essential.

Hope this helped! The next post of the series will probably be school supplies. (: I know that the Academic Orientation Program is starting next week, so have fun and good luck to all of the incoming freshman!

Rakuzen

Dorm items! Part 2: Food/"Kitchen" items

I'm back! Here is the food/kitchen items that I promised you. This is part of a series on dorm items that my friends and I found useful for our first year of college. I'll post a little bit about how this applies to Michigan State University and some of their dorm rules/items that serve this purpose, and then I'll post pictures and links for the items that I show. Note: None of these links are affiliate links, nor am I recommending that you buy these items off the sites shown. This is just to give you an idea of the online site's price, so you can keep an eye out for it.

Now, if you're a freshman at Michigan State or if you live in the dorms, you are required to buy a meal plan. These meal plans are awful (in my opinion) because they are ridiculously expensive, and they have 100 meals/week, with no other options. Unlike other schools, you can't swipe other people in unless you have guest meal passes (which requires opening a Sparty cash account on your meal plan). And seriously, what kind of person actually goes to the dining halls 100 times a week? I don't think that I ever went under 80.

That said, the list of kitchen appliances allowed in the dorms is very small. No rice cookers, no "George Foreman style grills" (I was so bummed, I really wanted to bring my panini grill). No crockpots, no toasters. You can have a microwave and refrigerator, though. I will also mention that my roommate had a rice cooker in our room (as did a lot of her friends, or so I am told), and even though we were suitemates with the RA, we never got in trouble for it. (We also had a ginormous space heater, against my will, and we never got in trouble for that, either).

Anyways! Here are some items that I personally had in my dorm, that my friends had, etc. I also included some foods that are well-suited for dorm life.

My roommate had a coffee maker kind of similar to this. This is a Mr. Coffee 5-cup coffeemaker. The point was, she had a small and cheap coffeemaker for first semester. Neither of us drank coffee, so she used it for boiling water for tea/ramen. I know a lot of college students do drink coffee, so I'm including it on the list. Make sure that you buy filters, coffee, creamer, sugar for it. (Actually, you could probably get away with taking some from the caf.)

Second semester, my roommate replaced the coffeemaker with an electric kettle. Not sure if this is the exact brand, but whatever. The coffeemaker took up a lot of space on our counter (on my half, actually...), so she got an electric kettle instead. I hated this thing with a passion, even more so than the coffeemaker (I just can't win) because it wasn't silent. I had a really old water boiler at home that was almost silent until it was done (when it started whistling). This made noise while it was boiling which was really annoying. Anyways!

I also want to mention that my kuya from Pilipino American Student Society apparently uses his to make ramen in. And my friend's roommate used it to boil eggs in. Multi-use? I never tried either, because I always used her rice cooker to boil water since it wasn't as loud or annoying.

If you're going to buy a microwave, get one like this Haier one, because they're supposed to be under 750 watts. No one comes to check apparently, but if you prefer to stay on the safe side. I didn't have a microwave in my room because I had brought the mini-fridge, my roommate didn't want a microwave, and I did not want to get stuck lugging both a mini-fridge and a microwave back home in my small car. First semester, since I was eating in the dining halls and stuff, I didn't usually miss it, but in second semester, when I didn't want to run into people when I left my dorm, I wished that I had one.

Also, the university offers a microfridge program through the University Activities Board (UAB), but I can't find the price on the site since it's summer, so take a look later. My friend's roommate rented the microfridge through the year, and it was pretty nice. It has a freezer! Also she didn't have to bother with taking it all the way home (although we did have a small duly to carry the thing all the way to Wilson on a very hot day).

Get a minifridge. This is a Culinair one that I found online, not the one that I used. You have to make sure that it is 5 cubic feet or less. My dad brought mine home on the day that I was set to move in (about an hour before I was going to leave), and it was huge, probably not 5 cubic feet. So, I don't recommend that. My car is super small, so it was a pain to move in and out with it. I will admit that I didn't really use my fridge, and if I lived in the dorms again, I probably wouldn't bring one. I only used it to keep my waterbottles cold since I hate warm water, and also to keep my apples. Other than that, my roommate filled it with a bunch of random things (she hated the dining hall food, so she filled it with food.)

These are really the only items that you might need/want. The rest of the items are just stuff that were useful to me, but are definitely "optional" on the packing list.

I would recommend bringing some paring knives. I didn't use this kind, I actually just "borrowed" one from my house, but I've used this brand before and they're easy to use. I just kept one in my dorm for cutting and peeling fruits. You could definitely live without it, but it was useful to me more than one time.

This Hamilton-Beach single-serve blender is on my want list for this year. I wanted it last year, too, but I never got it. A couple of people on my floor had one of these, and I really loved it. If you make power smoothies or whatever, this could be helpful. I didn't end up getting it last year because I didn't know how often I would use it, since I might not have fresh fruit on hand and my freezer didn't work. But I really want this, so I think I'll just buy it, especially since I'll be living in an apartment.

credit: motherjones

Water bottles. The water at Michigan State is really weird. I guess that it's unfiltered, something like that. I don't like it, and I didn't drink it. You have a few options for water. There are two re-usable water bottles in each dorm when you first move in, so you can refill them at the water stations. Supposedly (according to my roommate, because I never did that), even that water tastes a bit odd. Sparty's sells water, a small styrofoam cup for free and a large plastic cup for $0.25. Also, they sell bottles of water (some of them sell Dasani, which I love, or Absopure, which I hate), that you can use as part of your Combo X-Change. They also sell 12-packs of Absopure water, which my roommate would usually buy but, since I'm a brand snob (not really. Absopure just has a weird taste to me), I usually would buy myself a pack of water bottles at Meijer since I had a car. An even cheaper option (which we used at the end of the year) would be the plastic milk gallon-size water that is sold at the store, or the "tank" size ones.

I guess that's all the suggestions that I have for now... I'll update if I need to. Other than that, I just had a bunch of snacks and stuff. Just remember that you can always send me a message or leave me a comment if you have a question about Michigan State! I'll do some posts on each of the dorms that I've been in, since I know that incoming freshman will start getting their dorm assignments soon. A hint: I had my AOP on July 16-17, and on the 17th, they had put dorms on StuInfo. Note that these aren't permanent as they are used for billing purposes, but mine was correct. So around the middle of July you can check and then find a "Michigan State Class of 20--" on facebook and search your roommate. Before the official room assignments went out, I had already found one of my roommate (back when I lived in Akers).

Hope this helped! I know stuff goes on sale at random times throughout the summer, which is why I'm putting up posts like these.

`Rakuzen

Dorm items! Part 1: Organization/Storage

Hey guys, 

This is part of a segment that I decided to start doing on my blog. Once a week or so, I'll do a post on items for dorm living. I'm obviously not an authority on what you should and shouldn't bring and I'd definitely recommend that you look at other people's college packing lists, but I just wanted to show some items (with pictures) that helped my friends and I when we were in the dorms. I'll start off each post with how this applies to Michigan State University and some of their dorm rules/items. I would definitely recommend that you shop around for these items. I just picked the links randomly, mostly from Target, Walmart, and Amazon, but I'm sure that if you searched, you could find them for even cheaper. Also, none of these are affiliate links.

Today, I'll start with items for organization/storage in the dorms! I'll write about a couple different dorms, since a lot of them are different, and if you have any questions about specific dorms, just comment below and I'll try to find out for you. 

In Hubbard (North for sure, I think South as well) and Holmes: In terms of storage, the school provides you with a lot. There is a small "closet" with a pole for hanging clothes, and a shelf where you can store out-of-season clothes. They have a dresser with four large and deep drawers, and each of the desks have one drawer. They have a modular, stackable unit with two shelves and one drawer, which you can move around. 

In Wonders: There's not as much storage here, in my opinion (then again, I never lived there. But my friend did and I was there almost every day second semester). They have a dresser with six drawers I believe, because they're not nearly as deep as the ones in Hubbard. They have the same closet, with the pole for hanging clothes. Their desks are much nicer, because they have four drawers on the side (kind of like the one pictured, except instead of the plain wood backing on top of the desk, it's a cork board). But they don't have  the stackable shelves that Hubbard has.

Organization

This Sterilite 3-Drawer Medium Cart with wheels. Actually, I think my friend got this when her roommate left it behind but whatever. This is very tall, about as tall as the desks in Wonders (where she lived) and she stored her food and plates and stuff in it. The dorms provide a lot of storage space (in Hubbard we had a tall four-drawer dresser, as well as our desk and three stackable shelf things), but if you want to be more organized then this is perfect. And it has wheels! 

This Sterilite 3-Drawer Desktop Unit. I actually had two of these (although neither of them were exactly the same as the one pictured... One only had two drawers with the flip top lid, and the other had three drawers but a flat lid). I used one of them to store my makeup (and actually, I wish that I had bought this one for that purpose) and I think I got it for ~$5 at Walmart (note, the link contains a set of 4 from Amazon). I set the other one on my desk and put my school supplies like pencils, sticky notes, tape, scissors, etc. in it. This isn't really all that necessary if you have something to organize them in the desks because Hubbard has a pretty nice drawer, but I like being able to open it and sort it. 

I wish that I had this one for my storage supplies. I'm not usually that organized (I'm really messy unless I'm supposed to be studying or doing homework...) but when I get in a cleaning mode, I really like organizing. I think I'll buy this one before I go back in the fall, actually. 

My friend had an ottoman like this one. I can't find a link, so I'll update with one, but I'm pretty sure I've seen them at Walmart and Meijer and Target. Pick one that lets you store stuff inside, and you can use it to store pretty much anything. My friend used it for extra clothes, and it provided a seat and also she used it to climb onto her bed. (Her bed wasn't lofted, but even so it stands about four feet high. Which isn't fun if you're short like us. I just put one of the University-provided wooden shelves under my bed and pulled it out to get on my bed at night, but her dorm (Wonders) didn't have them. 

This. It's a Sterilite Stacking Basket, Size Small, but I can't find a link that matches. I bought a pack of three (in pink) from Target and used them to store my nail polish (the ones that I bought with me, anyways), and left the other two at home. I had another basket (Sterilite brand too, I think, that I bought at Walmart) that I stored in my drawer-dresser to organize food. It's also a nice way to keep things separate if you/your roommate don't want to share. 

Some of these Hello Kitty buckets. I really love Hello Kitty, so yeah. Anyways, the price on Amazon is a total rip-off, because I ended up buying a lot of these from the dollar section at Target. These were awesome and useful. I used one for my makeup brushes, one for plasticware (so we didn't have forks and knives strewn across the room...), one for the makeup that I wore daily (since I had an 8AM and didn't want to be running around the room while my roommate slept).

I had a couple of things from the dollar store, too, that I took pictures of before I started setting up my dorm, so I'll probably update with those. You can see a couple of them in my dorm haul post, but I did buy more after that post, so I'll update later. 

My next post will be food-related items for the dorm. 

Hope this was helpful if you're starting to plan out checklists and moving lists! I know that I started thinking early and getting some boxes ready early, but I was still scrambling, last minute, on move in day. But here's some items that were useful to me and my friends, just to give you an idea if you happen to see them on sale! 

`Rakuzen