Moving into a college dorm is arguably the most exciting part of moving onto campus. Your dorm… Moving into a college dorm is arguably the most exciting part of moving onto campus. Your dorm room is more than just a bedroom. It’s your new home in the vast world of experiences that college life offers. When you move in, you’ll have the opportunity to sculpt your collegiate life from a clean slate, and setting up your dorm space is the first step in doing so for many college students.

But before you rush to pack up the car and make the big move to campus, there’s some things you should consider: What do you want your room to look like? What things will you need to make dorm life easy? How will you keep your dorm from feeling like a dungeon? How will you survive life with a roommate?

To help you delve through the long list of questions to think about, I’ve compiled a number of suggestions to help turn your dorm room into a space that you’ll be proud to call your new home.

1. If you can rearrange the furniture, do it. Rearranging furniture makes you feel as if you are totally in control of how your room looks, and this can make your room feel like it’s really yours, even if you’re sharing it with another person. Just be sure to check with your roommate before you go shifting furniture willy-nilly: In the first few days of living together, you don’t want to step on any toes — or drop any dressers on them, for that matter. Look for a furniture arrangement that leaves lots of open space in the center of the room, and your tiny dorm space will suddenly seem much bigger.

2. Cover the walls. Dorm room walls are ugly. Really ugly. The bare, beige walls of most dorms can make your room feel like a prison. Covering up the blankness of your walls not only makes the space feel more homey, but it also offers an opportunity for you to express yourself and truly make your space your own. My walls are adorned with posters of my favorite bands and interesting covers that The Pitt News has published during my time as a student. Other options include pictures of family and friends, strings of lights, magazine cutouts or themed calendars.

3. Clean up once in a while. It’s really easy to become a slob when you get to college. Without mom cleaning up your dishes or doing your laundry, daily chores can easily get thrown by the wayside so that you can spend your time doing more important things like Facebook-stalking people who live on your floor. Keeping your room clean makes it nicer to come home to every day. It also keeps it from smelling, which can encourage floormates whose rooms smell like death to come and say hi. Who knows, having a clean room might just help you make some cool new friends.

4. Make your bed as comfortable as possible. My freshman year, I was never out of bed before noon on a weekend morning. I also insisted on taking lots of naps between classes. As such, I spent a lot of time cuddled up in bed with my favorite pillows and a comfy blanket. Making your bed as inviting as possible gives you something to look forward to coming home to after a long day of classes, work or studying.

5. Bring something fun to do. Between classes, you’re going to have so much free time that you won’t know what to do with it. Having some fun activities to do in your room will keep you from getting bored and spending an entire day staring at kittens on Reddit — not that that isn’t a perfectly acceptable way to spend your day. Bring along your favorite video games, CDs, movies, musical instruments, small toys or whatever else you find interesting. Have a hobby to keep yourself busy. I keep my guitar and my Nintendo 64 in my dorm; both are good for hours of entertainment when I get some downtime.

6. Spend some time in your room. While adventuring through the city to exciting places like the South Side and the Waterfront might sound like a lot more fun, spending some time in your dorm room will build a certain level of attachment. If you really want to have some fun in your room, grab some cheap pizzas from Antoon’s, burn those Dining Dollars on some sodas and snacks from Quick Zone and throw a party in your room. You’ll be surprised how many people want to hang out with you when you say you’re going to go buy pizza. So invite your floormates over to share: make new friends, listen to new music, play new video games — you can experience a world of things without even leaving your tiny room. After a while, you’ll have a bunch of fun memories that will make you feel as if you’ve lived in your dorm for your entire life. Well, maybe not quite that long. But at least for a really long time.

A large part of every student’s college experience is his or her lifestyle outside of classes and schoolwork. Life on campus is a whole new experience, and you should make the most of it as often as you can. Creating a new home for yourself in your dorm room is a great start to your new collegiate life, and it will give you a solid base to start from when you begin exploring the many facets of life at Pitt.

If you’d like to discuss the many detailed principles of dorm room feng shui or if you’d just like to know why he thinks Antoon’s is better than Sorrento’s, email Pat at [email protected].