Palo Verde West

Source: ASU campus tours

            Living in dorms is arguably one of the biggest parts about living on college campuses. When in dorms, students are most likely living on their own for the first time in their lives. They have more independence and can choose to do what they want. The student who is being observed spends most of his time in the Palo Verde West dorms. This is no surprise and is pretty normal for any student that lives on campus in most cases. Furthermore, the dorms can be seen to some as a negative and not very beneficial area to be in due to how many students are staying at the dorms and with the large population cramped into one area comes many distractions. But from observing the student, revealed that at times this may be the case but most of the time the dorms are made to actually find benefits between socializing and academics and at the same time promote the healthy environment. With one’s own room, there is privacy and a space for a student to create their own space and control their own environment, deciding how academic or social it will be. Furthermore, college dorms provide the ultimate out of class room setting and according to Isset, one can “routinely discover cognitive gains of students implementing opportunities for college students to reflect on out-of-class educational experiences” Meaning that it is ultimately beneficial for students living out of class to use their educational skills to reflect and think about their activities. Thus having a social life outside of the class and in the dorms provides more opportunity for understanding and implementing different parts of education. When living outside the dorms in ones parents’ house or by themselves, there is definitely a good environment for academics but there is a lack of great social interaction that would be found when living on campus. Thus, when living off of campus there is a lack of balance with academics and social aspects thus not giving the student the healthy mental state needed to maintain good academics.