Tuesday, October 23, 2012

DUREN (Where I live)




Duren Basics

  • 6 floors accessed by 2 elevators or stairs
  • Study room and trash room on every floor
  • Laundry room in basement
  • Mini work out room attached to game room and TV room
  • Vending machines in basement and on 1st floor
  • 24 hour service desk
  • Mail boxes, packages picked up at desk
  • Public bathrooms on first floor and in basement
  • Private central courtyard
  • Lounge room on 1st floor, has a piano
  • Closest dining in Kingsolving, across the street, or Littlefeild, a block down
  • Closest parking is 27th Street Garage 
  • Bike Racks by front door
  • RA's on every floor
  • Co-ed throughout (no wing or floor designation)
  • 1 over night guest per person, 72 hour maximum (no gender rules and must sign in overnight guests)


- Court Yard

 Study Lounge -
 

- TV Room and
Game Room

Exercise Room -
 
 
 - Laundry Room

Trash Room -
- Elevator Area
 & Trash Room

Some Basic Rooms -

 Rooms

  • Furniture is moveable
  • Private bathrooms
  • 1 Window
  • 2 beds, extra long mattresses only, raiseable/bunkable
  • 2 Desks
  • 2 Dressers
  • 2 Cabinets
  • 1 Bookshelf
  • 1 Mini-Fridge with Mini-Freezer (four shelves above)
  • 1 Microwave (permanently attached to top of fridge)
  • 5 Pin boards
  • Shower stall (comes with curtain but easily changed)
  • 2 Shelves in bathroom
  • Open closet
  • Self-controlled A.C. (digital reader)








Perks: The private bathrooms are nice because you only have to share with your roommate. Duren is very new in comparison to most other dorms so it looks nice and has very few repair problems. People have come in and commented how our toilets flush nicely, which is odd but true. Shower water gets very hot, very fast. The walls are flat and white, no cinder blocks here. There is a special room on every floor that holds four people but it is very spacious that also has bigger closets and they even get an extra sink outside of the bathroom (Look for room 4310 in basic layouts). If you cross Guadalupe you have Kirby Lane Cafe which is a favorite spot for students to eat and it is conveniently open 24/7. There is also a 7/11 that accepts bevo bucks. If you do get the 27th Street Garage, you do not have to move your car on game days but chances are you'll be parking in the sun because the car has to be on floor four or five during weekdays. Duren is just off of Guadalupe which is nice because your still close to "life" but in the confines of campus.

Cons: There are four TV's in the basement, the main TV is big, old, and broken which makes the "TV room" pretty awful. Smaller TV's are above the pool table, the exercise equipment and one is in the laundry room, the only one that works out of these three is above the exercise equipment. This is basically means bring you own TV. Not having a food place attached directly to the dorm is slightly annoying at times. Duren is in the far North West Corner of campus which can sometimes be a decent walk.You can only enter from one door which is slightly annoying but manageable. There is no cover for the toilet and things fall in, which is why I assume they did not do the extended counter behind it as they did in San Jacinto, but it is still a dangerous situation.

Security: Rooms have keys which lock the wrong way but is easy to get used to. To get to the room accessible area there is a card swipe where you swipe your ID card. (There are touch pads that do not require swipe that are very convenient because you just hold your wallet/purse up and it would register but they turned them off only a few weeks after school started) After 11 p.m. you must swipe to enter Duren and then again at the front desk. There is a side door that you can exit from but not enter.   
 Odd Tid Bits: The doors are thicker than standard and the overhang thing you see on my bathroom door does not fit, I had to bend the metal to force it on there. Also I changed out my shower curtain and bought metal hooks to hold the curtain and the bar is bigger than standard so again I had to push them past their limit and force them on the bar. There are two built in towel racks behind the door and two robe hooks next to the shower. Each room comes with a trash can and a recycling bin. The tile floors call for a rug in my opinion. There is an odd cubby space next to the toilet, I suggest bringing something to put there to use as counter space since there is very little around the sink.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

I am a freshman at the University of Texas and my worst fear was where I was gonna live and who I was gonna live with; I used the wonderful UT website, but I'm so detail oriented that I wanted more. I am gonna try to run this blog to talk about on campus dorms, off campus dorms and other living situations. I plan to have pictures and descriptions and funny dorm life stories. (All names will be changed in these stories) I hope I can help future longhorns find the place that's perfect for them.

To start, here is the UT website directed to on campus housing: UT's official dorm website