Lounging in Pennsylvania Avenue Residence Hall's Babcock 3
Anonymous Student
(ready to use)
Coauthors
jessica bannon
Janet Gao
nicole pivato |
EXPLORE
About the ethnographer
Unit Keywords
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kw:Dorm, kw:life, kw:roommates |
Partner Projects
| Ethnography of the University |
INQUIRE
Rationale of the Unit
What subculture have you chosen to research and why? What do you know about this group and what do you want to know? List your intial research questions.
I am researching how dorm life affects students. I think that it's interesting because people in a dorm have to encounter each other all the time. From my experiences, I have come to realize that each floor in a dorm is like its own extended family with an Resident Advisor as sort of a parental figure. I want to know: How does the environment of a dorm affect a person? To what extent does it affect the person? Does it affect ach individual's own judgement? What makes a dorm its own subculture? |
Project diary
INTRODUCTION:
A community is a place where "Everybody is getting along, being friendly to one another, and helping each other out". A definition not given by Webster or any other dictionary, but by a community member of Pennsylvania Avenue Residence Hall's Babcock 3, Amanda Carreno. Students spend most of their time on their dorm floor because their living quarters is located there. Pennsylvania Residence Halls is one of the many residence halls at the Univeristy of Illionois. Babcock 3 is one one of the two floors in Babcock that is all girls, the rest consists of all guys. The floor contains 31 rooms and is home to 61 girls, one of which is the resident advisor. The question is how a student's dorm environment affects him or her and to what extent. With 31 girls living on one floor of a building, how do they influence one another? People living in close quarters together effect one another and how they behave.
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Research Plan
Discuss your initial research method. How will you begin to seek out answers to your research questions? Where will you begin taking field notes? Who are you considering as a possible informant?
I will observe people in the bathroom, in the hall way, and especially in the lounge across the hall from me. I will observe how much people study and how much they hang out with friends. I wil sit out in the lounge myself and watch people. I will read the message boards that almost every door has hanging outside.
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Project diary
Nov 3:
There are article on the walls in bathroom
How to take care of your body
how to watch what you eat
When and where to get health help |
Readings, Keywords, and Constructs
Discuss what sources, other than your own field notes, that you consult for your project.
The sources I will use will be scientific researches and articles about college students who live in dorms. I will look at books and see how people behave when they are forced to live together. How people are affected.
Teh Daily Illini - "Residents of Daniels Hall -- which houses graduate students -- gathered Sunday night in the main lounge to watch the Super Bowl. Such events are as much cultural as they are social".
www.housing.uiuc.edu
RA job description -
"Assumes a leadership role in developing a sense of responsibility among the community and fostering consideration for the rights and freedoms of others".
Daily Illini
U-WIRE) MADISON, Wis. — A University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire student died Tuesday after giving birth in a university residence hall bathroom.
Emergency personnel reportedly found Karen Marie Hubbard, 19, in a bathroom stall some time near 11:30 p.m. She was not breathing and had no pulse.
Nov 5:
Interview with Amanda Carreno, A resident in Babcock 3
How would you characterize your dorm floor?
It’s friendly and could be friendlier. There are three cliques, there should be more socializing going on.
Would you say you feel connected to everyone?
Not to everyone but a few people. Connected to people with more related attitudes.
Do the people on your floor affect your behavior?
Sometimes, there might be too much noise.
Do you feel that you have changed since living in Babcock 3? Why do you think you have?
Yes, college life has changed me. Floor hasn’t changed. Can trust people to wake me up during fire.
What is your definition of a community?
A place where "Everybody is getting along, being friendly to one another, and helping each other".
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Project diary
I used the daily illini as one of my sources. It is not bias because it is the student's voices. The information I got from it is very specific, narrowing it down to what dorm these sources pertain to and what not. It is an observation with a concluding anaylysis that the event is culutural and social. The superbowl happens annually and since these are graduate students, they might have been doing this every year.
The information about the girl giving birth in a dorm bathroom in Wisconsin I feel is not very relevant to my focus. However it does show that much of a student's life goes on in the dorms.
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Field Notes
Use this space to discuss what interesting, significant, revealing, and/or strange information you've recorded in your field notes. What are you learning about your chosen subculture? You might also begin to synthesize the information you are getting from your observations and the other sources you consult.
Everyday there seems to be a group of girls go down to late night and then they come up to the lounge, crank up the music, and just relax and complain about their day.
University of Michigan housing authorities contend that such "Odd Couple" pairings are done on purpose, intended to prevent possibly dangerous situations. "Last year two introvert freshmen died of starvation in their dorm room," said Sandra Robbins, a spokeswoman for HRA. "Forensic reports revealed that in their final days the two freshmen became so preoccupied showing each other their electronic equipment and fabricating stories about previous sexual encounters that they forgot to go to any meals."
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Project diary
Oct 30
7:57 pm:
Movie night in room 302
Nov 2
5:00 pm:
group goes down to dinner
9:05 pm:
a group goes down to late night
comes up and eats in lounge
labtops are brought out
loud music
people doing each others hair
Nov 3
4:21 pm:
there are 31 rooms on the floor
27 have message board on outside
5 have door open
6:30 pm:
every freshman has to attend a care workshop
I went to mine and saw several girls from my floor, we all grouped together and sat next to one another automatically
12:17 am:
People lounging in the lounge and eating late night snacks
12:30 am:
Movie and popcorn in room 307
door open
The article above in the University of Michigan housing places, the two roommates did have an affect on each other. Separately the two freshman would have ate their meals, however, when they were together, they were so engaged in each others entertainment and ego that they forgot to eat. In any other condition they would not have starved themselves. This is a credible artivcle because it comes from a credible school, the University of Michigan. |
Findings
Discuss your findings.
I left my door open one afternoon and had my music on. People walking by stopped in to listen to some songs, make a remark, say "hi", or anything.
The girl next door one time asked if she could come down to dinner with me and my friends.
There is a computer lab open 24/7
Net Techs in the computer lab
Always someone at front desk at all hours of the day |
Project diary
Nov 3:
Memo board says: "Come on in" "Leave a message" "I don't know you but hi"
Feeling lonely is a thing of choice. It is feeling that a student brings upon him or herself in a dorm. There are students always in the lab twenty-four seven. The doors in the halls are open to making nw friends. So deciding to be a loner is a choice each individual has a right to make. On memo boards outside the door there are welcoming notes and notes of friendship. |
Refer to other EOTU work
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Users' Comments on this Unit
- The author addresses how dorm life and living so close to one another affects the lives of students. She makes a point that the students who reside on the same floor have an affect on one another. She makes the point with outside sources. The article about the students from the University of Michigan about the students who died of starvation supports the point that she is trying to make. She made the evaluation that if the students had not been so involved with one another, they would have rememebered to go down to eat their meals. - by pivato@uiuc.edu
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