As area students prepare for their freshman year, their thoughts focus on what to bring.
Lewiston

She hasn’t actually seen her first dorm room yet, but 18-year-old Katie Morin already knows just what she wants it to look like.

A dry erase board posted on the outside door for messages. A bulletin board on the inside.

A T-shirt quilt covering her bed.

Photos filling the walls.

“Pictures of, like, friends. All of Lewiston High School. All over the place,” said Morin, a recent Lewiston High School graduate.

Across the state, thousands of soon-to-be college freshmen like Morin are spending this August shopping in department stores and malls, making decorations and raiding family linen closets.

After 13 years in school, they are experts in hunting down the coolest clothes and the must-have school supplies.

But as entering college freshmen, they now face a new challenge: Designing the perfect dorm room.

“Nothing too severe, too out there,” said Morin, who will enter the University of Maine at Farmington this fall. “I play a lot of sports. That’s probably what my half of the room is going to look like.”

Just like home

Schools design dorm rooms as small, all-purpose areas where students can sleep, study, eat and socialize. College students use dorm rooms to express their personalities.

Some minimalists survive on the old bookshelves, bed and dresser that come standard with most rooms. Others stuff their space with teddy bears, chairs, plastic storage crates, pictures and lamps.

Girls often use curtains and matched pastel bedding, said Amber Ulmer, a 21-year-old resident assistant who oversees a dormitory at the University of Southern Maine. Boys go for plaids and bold colors.

This fall, Ulmer predicts, many freshmen will arrive with royal blue, lime green and fire-engine red accessories- a new color scheme being pushed by a popular homegoods store.

“First-year students always seem to come with some sort of theme,” said Ulmer. “They go to Linens and Things and buy that whole bed set.”

Others say personal photos – not posters – will be popular this year. So will laptop computers. And rope lights or Christmas lights strung around the room all year. And plastic crates or bed lifts that provide extra storage space in rooms that can average about 200 square feet and usually accommodate two or three students.

Sarah Kay, a recent St. Dominic Regional High School graduate, plans to bring all but the Christmas lights with her when she moves into a University of Southern Maine Gorham dormitory this fall.

Plus a small refrigerator, TV, down comforter and bright flowered sheets. And maybe some DVDs.

“I want my dorm room to feel as much like home as possible,” she said.

Creativity

But while many college students will spend their August shopping, others will make their decorations.

A sports fan and longtime athlete, Katie Morin decided to create a quilt using all of her old sports T-shirts and jerseys. She and her grandmother finished sewing it last week.

“It’s not the basic plaid comforter,” she said.

At Bowdoin College in Brunswick, juniors Libby Nells and Erin Dukeshire remember turning an extra bookshelf into a couch when they were roommates. The pair took out the shelves, duct taped a support system to the bottom of the case and covered the whole thing with small comforters and pillows.

“People would flop down on it and be really surprised,” Dukeshire said.

At Central Maine Community College, a group of resident assistants still remember how one past student put up a hammock, an entertainment center and built his own mini spiral staircase in the room.

Not every college will allow that degree of creativity, though. Many have rules about what can be built, stored or removed from a room.

Bowdoin College, for example, bans lofts, excessive furniture and anything hanging from the ceiling.

If the rules aren’t followed, said college spokeswoman Susan Danforth, “the student’s responsible for the damage.”

Advice

Experts warn college freshmen to watch how much stuff they bring. The most common first year mistake is packing too much stuff.

“They don’t think about the fact that in two months time they’ll be going home. They bring everything for the year,” said Denise Nelson, director of residential life at the University of Southern Maine.

Nelson and other college officials advise new students to talk to their roommate before buying a microwave, TV, refrigerator or other bulky items. Students who don’t can end up with two of everything crammed into a small space.

“They get caught up a little bit in the buying frenzy,” Nelson said.

Experts also say new students should read their college’s list of suggested items to bring from home. Some colleges equip dormitory common areas with microwaves, TVs and refrigerators, making it unnecessary for students to buy their own.

For her part, Morin said she knows exactly what she can and can’t bring, what is suggested and what’s not.

And she’s ready to go.

“I want the college life,” she said. “I can’t wait.”


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