There is a whirlwind of news that we are bombarded with each day, and it can be difficult to find any grasp of what is happening in our country. There is a piece that I want to emphasize as especially important to us as engineers though: The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). As the head of DOGE, Elon Musk is employing an intentional strategy: choosing to have most of its members, lieutenants, and grunts be engineers, especially young engineers. As young engineers ourselves, I ask everyone to reflect on why that is.
My theory is this: as engineers, we’re trained to dive headfirst into things we don’t know about and work our way out to understand, change, and optimize. Yet we are primarily—if not solely—trained to see through a technical lens. I see it manifest in countless ways in myself and at Olin. There’s a problem: Let me try to fix it! Something is inefficient: Let me optimize it! Build this thing: Learn enough about it to experiment with! There’s a constant desire to dive right into solving the problem before we step back and look at the pool: is it worth diving in? And how far might our ripples flow? It limits our awareness of the world and our perception of the impact we have on it. I reflect on CD, the class that encourages us most to engage with non-technical concepts of impact. For all of the care and understanding we were taught to search for, how many concluded that society itself had a fundamental necessity for change? Our designs were limited by the implicit conception of what we could offer as engineers—what products we could create within established systems, not what larger change or impact we could dwell upon. And CD is the core class that most centers a non-technical impact approach to our education! Our other engineering experiences are about finely polishing our technical lenses. Any larger evaluation of non-technical impacts are briefly tacked onto a class or two, if addressed at all. Intentional or not, and no matter what values we state, those experiences train us to not dwell long upon the larger societal impact of our work.
Many DOGE engineers did not shape their lives around the larger societal impact they would have, but on doing the technical work that was best for themselves. I know this because they didn’t go to create non-profits or change policy or improve public interest technologies after college. They went to study engineering, then they went to intern or work at Tesla and SpaceX, likely because it would pay them the most or give them the best technical experience or was simply just cool engineering work. They shaped their lives around honing their technical, problem-solving abilities, then choosing the work that was most personally profitable. When they were offered a spot in DOGE, it made sense economically to bind themselves to Musk and if nothing else, they got a new exciting optimization problem: the government.
In the face of a dauntingly complex and competitive world, we all have been conditioned to look after ourselves: it is the very foundation of our economic system. Especially as engineers, we’re told, implicitly or explicitly, that we are justified in finding what will be the most profitable for us, the impact is for others to decide. I understand there are financial realities, and I acknowledge that I speak from a place of privilege, but an awareness of impact is something that constitutes the very foundation of what makes any person a responsible member of society—a respect and acknowledgement that your choices will unavoidably impact others. In the absence of that awareness of broader perspectives arises an absence of empathy, humility, and understanding.
And that is why I am afraid of DOGE.
The invocation of Nazism is a heavy, overused trope which risks diminishing its true horror. But in observing DOGE, I see a clear parallel of how engineers become the mechanisms of hate, of how an indifferent and banal evil arises when technical education is divorced from broader perspectives.
The parallel is of Albert Speer.1 Young and ambitious, he graduated in architecture from the Technical University of Berlin but lacked any real political fervor. He aligned himself with the Nazi Party in the 30’s largely because their promise to reinvent German culture would afford him more opportunities to do the grand architecture he envisioned creating. By 1933, he was lucratively involved in designing pageantry and building plans, and when war broke out, Speer was chosen as the Minister of Armaments and War Production. In 1943, the London Observer examined him:
“Speer is, in a sense, more important for Germany today than Hitler, Himmler, Goering, Goebbels or the generals. Speer is not one of the flamboyant and picturesque Nazis. Whether he has any other than conventional political opinions is unknown. He might have joined any other political party that gave him a job and a career. He is very much the average man, well dressed, civil, non-corrupt, very middle class in his style of life, with a wife and six children. Much less than any of the other German leaders does he stand for anything particularly German or particularly Nazi. He rather symbolizes a type which has become increasingly important in all belligerent countries; the pure technician, the classless, bright young man, without background, with no other original aim than to make his way in the world, and no other means than his technical and managerial ability. It is the lack of psychological and spiritual balast and the ease with which he handles the terrifying technical and organizational machinery of our age which makes this slight type go extremely far nowadays … This is their age; the Hitlers and the Himmlers we may get rid of, but the Speers, whatever happens to this particular man, will be long with us.”
This quote serves as a constant, shuddering reminder of what a technical education can mean, and is what we have a responsibility to reckon with as engineers. The employment of technically focused, ambitious youth is the strategy that Elon Musk and the Trump Administration are employing with DOGE members. They were given a directive to make huge cuts, to root out DEI, and to report back. They excel at it. This is not a random coincidence, but an intentional tactic. We’ve seen it used before, and we have to ask ourselves what we must do as we see it now.
I am not saying to eschew engineering as an evil, but know that engineers who do not actively grapple with and work to change their impact are engineers that function as tools, and there will always be those that will seek to use us as such. This can be for good, sure, but more often it is used for extraction, exploitation, and oppression. No movement, no organization, no company, and no regime is possible without the support or, more pertinently, the complicity of its engineers.
We cannot run behind the justification of a non-partisan and impartial self-interest. We cannot hide behind the thought that someone else would do it anyways. We more than anyone have an obligation to systems-level understanding, knowing what we are building and for whom we are building it. Creating an electric car to learn in college is different from creating an electric car that profits a white supremacist. Optimizing a drone to evaluate infrastructure health is different from optimizing a drone that is going to be used for urban warfare. Building trains is different if you know what, or who, those trains will hold. Your work will not result in the creation of apolitical technologies—it will be placed in the hands of people and organizations that will seek to use them for their own purposes.
I do not say this to exclude any companies from your job search, but none of us are exempt from confronting the deeper impacts of the work that we do, because that is how we are used. If you plan to work for an organization that you know is not doing good, then actively reflect on the power that you have to change that work from within and strive to do so. Theories of change differ from outside change to inside change and from issue to issue, but no matter what your theory is, you cannot bury your head from your impact for your own self interest. Complicity is exactly what they desire of you.
When I look at DOGE, I don’t see a group of conniving masterminds. I see a group of engineers who I am familiar with: who when they get their directive, see it only as the problem they’ve been given. And the tool gets to work.
The reason I am afraid of DOGE is not because it is a group of intentionally evil or malicious people, it’s because I see a clear parallel to the worst of history: a clear warning of how technically focused, ambitious people are used. It reminds me of lessons from the past, and it gives me shudders of the future.
I am afraid of DOGE because it is a group of people that I know well, and who have been trained in the same way that I have been. I am afraid because they demonstrate clearly what can happen if I stop striving to grapple with the complexity of the world and the impact that I am having on it. I urge you to heed the same warning.
Summarizing a person’s life and motivations is hard to do briefly. I do not claim this is a definitive account of Albert Speer, but is what I have found as the impression from the account of a Nuremberg Prosecutor (King) who wrote a book on him and the below quote, as well as other online sources. ↩︎
I spent a number of years at Olin. During that time, I had a lot of conversations about how Olin wasn’t a good fit. There are plenty of valid academic and non-academic reasons to want to transfer, ranging from “I need to be closer to home to support relatives” to “Olin can’t really support my major,” to just not vibing with the campus culture. Yet, whenever the possibility of transferring to another college came up, everyone just assumed that Olin credits would not be accepted (“what even is a QEA cycle”), that it would be a huge waste of time and money.
That’s why I’m writing this article, to let people know it is possible. If this article were published during my first or second years, I would have started the transfer application process then. Sunk cost is a fallacy.
Can I actually transfer Olin credit?
Yes! You will lose some time, but nowhere near as much as I originally thought.
Let’s use UMass Amherst as an example (because they were the first school to send a credit evaluation).
UMass Amherst accepted 3 years worth of Olin courses… with the sole exception of Circuits. Some courses were marked as satisfying a general education requirement; for example, TLAB1 was marked as satisfying the Biology requirement. Unfortunately, for the courses that were not marked as general education, I do not know how many of these I can apply towards a major. They run a more detailed evaluation after you accept (and I’m still weighing my options).
Don’t forget about potential credits that Olin didn’t accept from high school: community college, AP exams, credits from another institution earned through a high school program (for example, RIT takes credits from PLTW2… if you had to endure PLTW in high school, I offer my condolences).
In the end, if UMass is my final choice, I can probably graduate in 2 years if I choose so. If I returned to Olin, it would most likely take 1.5.
I can’t tell you about any private institutions yet, sorry. They don’t handle transfers on the same rolling basis state schools do. From what I understand, most private institutions limit transfer credits to four semesters, so I will lose two years.
So, you want to transfer:
Here’s some advice that you can’t just Google.
Download important records that are behind Microsoft Single Sign On. IT will disable yournamehere@olin.edu. Most important for transferring is to download every syllabus from Canvas (or the course website). Some schools require a syllabus when evaluating your courses for transfer—I forgot to do this, and have been reaching out to professors and my remaining student contacts. This is frustrating.
Olin has a prepared letter explaining what the QEA+ISIM+ModSim cycle covers. This was intended for people applying to graduate school, but you can add it as an additional document upload in your transfer applications.
Don’t re-use your high school college application essays. One of mine literally made me vomit upon rereading it.
Visit campuses. I applied to college during peak ‘rona, and online “tours” really did not influence my top choices. It actually helps to have a sense of the neighborhood (or lack thereof), and how alive the campus feels.
It’s a beautiful Saturday morning here in one of the blander corners of New England. The sun is shining, we can finally see the grass again, Babson’s trees are looking fantastic, and I once again stumble into a community Go-Bike left outside leaning against a bike rack. My instinct, as the neighborhood bicycle hall-monitor, is to send a somewhat snarky email to one of my favorite list servs – once again not quite screaming, but recommending – into the void that is your collective Outlook inboxes. I mount the bicycle, point it towards East Hall, and start cruising. Wind blowing through my hair, I’m once again reminded how nice it is to ride a bike. When I return to my room though, my email-writing zeal is not where I left it. Instead, I’m left feeling something closer to reflection. The gist of which, as obvious as it may seem, is as follows: you don’t get anything for returning the bikes. Smug satisfaction is not a reward, nor is negotiating the often cluttered bike/ball room. And further, no one is going to get punished for not doing it; I’m not going to use my awesome detective skills to track you down and honor board you or otherwise scold your inaction.
As much as I would like to make this all about bikes, the issue at hand has nothing to do with them. How often do you think about how lucky we are to be here? Or more precisely, how astounding it is that we have as much latitude as we do? Take issue with admin all you want, I kvetch my heart out too, but don’t lose sight of how much faith and trust is endowed in us as a student body. 24-hour access to 3D printers, liquid nitrogen, a materials science lab, beautiful study spaces, a pool room, professional audio equipment, cameras, bikes, you name it. All with limited or zero oversight or restrictions. This is not inclusive of all the non-24-hour things we are trusted to use responsibly, and is certainly not an exhaustive list. The key word being: trusted. At the same time, it feels that year-over-year, this sense of community responsibility is eroded bit by bit. This is not the least bit speculative. For the second consecutive academic year, the shop has issued a lengthy email imploring more responsible use of the 3D printers. A trackable increase in emails sent by our wonderful library team points to a growingly ungovernable, irresponsible student body.
Most recently, it took the threat of an honor boarding for a lounge couch in East Hall to be returned. I won’t bore you with the numbers on missing bikes again. It’s easy to run this through the typical modern-times Olin student framework of redirecting the blame towards administration, which avoids the simpler explanation: that simply students lack respect for our communal resources. Nobody knows how to just ‘chill out’ anymore. Or perhaps we just can’t continue justifying paying for missing materials that would have been a blissful write-off in the “good old days” none of us personally experienced. In reality, though, it’s hard to deny that we have a role to play in all of this. It’s not in any way inconceivable that some of these open doors we all gleefully tell prospective students about will be under lock and key by the time we graduate.
Trust is not something we are inherently endowed or owed. I am well aware that sincerity is uncool, and that what I am about to say is somehow even less cool than that, but do you remember that document we all signed during orientation? As jaded as you might feel, I would suggest that it does, at some level, mean something.
Once again those turpitudinous “journalists” of the Frankly Speaking Team have worked tirelessly in the repression of true student voices this month… So alas, like Oedipus or Odysseus or whoever the hell the rock pushing dude was, we must take up our perspicacious burden once again to bring you this issue’s rejected headlines.
Dining Hall Fire Uncontrollably Rages Into Meat Freezer, Perfectly Sears Filet Mignon
“Best thing I’ve eaten all month,” says student
Punxsutawney Phil Just Fucking With Us At This Point
“Oohoohoo, you thought it was Spring? Here’s three inches of snow, now stop waking me up”
You! Yes, You! I Know You Didn’t Go To A SINGLE Faculty Engagement Despite All Those Emails…
Brad Minch is so disappointed… Did you even bother to look at all the emojis he sent?? You disgust me…
Illegal Betting Ring “Guessing Where The Next Hot Water Leak Will Be” Jackpot Now Over $50,000
CORe Funding To Have Meals With Staff Exhausted Immediately As James Is Taken Out To Dinner 57 Times
“I mean, he’s just such a cool dude” said the person ahead of you in the Omelette line
Spreadsheet Spreadsheet Released To Help Organize All The Other Spreadsheets
Furniture Check Fails To Find 2L Couch But Uncovers 3 Chairs, 7 Ping Pong Paddles, 19 Air Hockey Tables, and Kardashev Type III Mouse Civilization
“Godammit, this is why we use hard containers” Says ResLife Team
“Gee I’m So Excited For A Whole ‘Nother Half Of The Semester!” Says First Year Back From Spring Break About To Get Their Shit Rocked
Oliners have a lot of thoughts. Frankly Speaking aims to be a platform for Oliners to share some of those thoughts with the broader Olin community, beyond their immediate social circles. By contributing your writing to Frankly Speaking, you are empowered to help shape our community through narrative and conversation: sparking widespread discussion, challenging assumptions, lightening someone’s mood, and more.
Writing is an important act of creation and discovery, through which we can achieve greater understanding of ourselves and the world around us. Even when you’re not the author, critically engaging with written opinions and narratives is a crucial part of staying connected with your community. Through our distribution process, the publication team hopes to encourage this aspect of participating in a community.
We have entered a new era of Olin, one in which the needs of our community and the conversations we need to have are changing rapidly. Frankly Speaking was built to fit a different set of community needs, during a time when we were asking the question: “What should Olin contribute to the world?” However, the Olin we know today is one where we are looking inward more than ever, evaluating our existing infrastructure and the once-dormant tensions that are now bubbling to the surface. The rift between leaders and the broader community requires trust that can only be built with greater transparency, communication, and clarity. Over two decades after Frankly Speaking was founded, Oliners find themselves asking a more urgent and fundamental question: “What should Olin be to itself?” Olin was created as a response to problems intrinsic to traditional engineering education, but now we are faced with problems intrinsic to Olin.
We are lucky to reach a broad audience: students, staff, faculty, board members, and even people outside the Olin community. Because of this, we have a responsibility to uphold the legitimacy and integrity of our publication. Historically, this structure has rarely been explicit, or came about during a time when there were different and more avenues for communication. But our community has changed, and so too has the role of Frankly Speaking. So, let’s start building a model that can better serve us.
One way we hope to increase clarity is by defining what types of writing might be seen in Frankly Speaking. Submissions tend to fall into a few categories. These differ greatly from each other and should be held to different content standards. Here’s how you’ll see this going into the next academic year:
First-person experience
Opinion pieces and/or calls to action
Reviews
Narratives, or pieces with no explicit takeaway
Fact-based reporting
Informational
Interview
Games, comedy, satire, etc.
When a member of the Olin community submits a piece, they must classify that piece as one of the above categories and acknowledge that they have, to the best of their ability, held their writing to its respective standard. (Official guidelines changes are in the works!)
As with everything at Olin, Frankly Speaking will never see a final version. Our work as a publication team is never done. To keep doing it, we need your involvement! Tell us what you think about a recent issue, or walk us through an article you’d love to write. Better yet, join us in producing Frankly Speaking by becoming a staff writer or editor. If you’re interested, we would love to hear from you. Most of all, don’t stop being an active member of the community that makes Olin such a special place.
To say there has been a lot of student upset towards the College is, perhaps, to put it mildly. There is a certain call-to-action in the air: Students at every point in their Olin journey want more dialogue, more power, and more institutional change. In this time of undeniable friction, what does it mean to Do Something as an Olin student? Is being a voice for change our right or our obligation? And, perhaps more pressingly, how does our answer to that question as a community change based on the identity of the Oliner in question?
This essayist presents Bipolar I: a tale of psychosis and, perhaps, the path of least resistance.
During my first involuntary hospitalization, a Bipolar I diagnosis and an unsolicited prognosis were given to me hand-in-hand: “College probably isn’t in the cards for you.”
As you might imagine, I took that advice and ran… far, far away from it. It may be an uphill battle more often than not, but I’m here at Olin. I’m here. More important to our discussion today, though, is that my psychosis is here with me.
Once I got to campus, I didn’t wait long to seek psychosis-related accommodations at Olin. I didn’t know what to even ask for, or if I should be asking for anything at all, but I knew I needed to try. I stumbled my way through that initial meeting best I could, both overexplaining and underexplaining the hallucinations, paranoia, and delusions that I knew would make my time here difficult.
I’m a junior currently—things may very well be different now. But what will always be true is that Olin College’s first accommodation offer to me was a smart pen: a note-taking accommodation. I’m not ashamed to say I cried real tears at that point in the meeting.
At the time, I was told that flexibility regarding my attendance would be considered an “unreasonable” accommodation. Reading through the Binder of Accommodations Past, few of the reasonable accommodations seemed like they would make a difference in my case—and of course, that makes sense, if we think about accommodations as a way for someone experiencing unique challenges to have a similar class experience as their peers. How can we accommodate psychosis in our classrooms? I don’t think it’s possible or desirable. While measures can certainly be taken to reduce a psychotic student’s stress, ideally reducing the likelihood of an episode, there is a certain amount of waiting-it-out and not-being-in-class that must be done should issues arise. So, I argue, psychotic students should be allowed leniency in their attendance. Nonetheless, I was on my own in this department, and I Did Nothing. I didn’t know how to express what I was feeling to Olin College, and the accommodation policies were reinforcing what I already felt: That I could only really be an engineering student as long as I had enough good days in a row.
When I came back to school from my second involuntary hospitalization this past Spring (we win some, we lose some), I was initially told I would need to have weekly check-ins with Olin College regarding my mental health for the rest of the semester. Whether these check-ins were intended for my benefit or to assess my stability is still not clear to me. What I can say is, they were certainly not to my benefit. I Did Something: During one of these check-ins, I expressed the stress I experienced over feeling like I had to give up more of my privacy than other students 100% of the time due to the more extreme experiences I encountered 1% of the time.
I was told hospitalization “changes things.” I would come to understand in time how accurate, if vague, that statement was. While these in-person check-ins transformed into email correspondence as the semester progressed, the feeling that I was being tested remained, and the idea that the College was just waiting for me to slip up eventually morphed into one of my recurring paranoias.
Olin College has opened so many doors for me and truly given me some of the best opportunities, friendships, and faculty relationships of my life. I cannot express enough how grateful I am to attend this school, and I will be the first to say that my accommodations of flexible deadlines and being able to leave class unexpectedly have greatly benefitted me. At the same time, Olin College has failed me, too—and for me, the functional result of Doing Nothing and Doing Something regarding my disability was the same.
Over time, I began to craft a new idea of what Doing Something in this department meant: Instead of trying to change how the institution responded to my psychosis, I invested more time in my own health and the health of my friends. I Did Something Quiet. I supported my friends and learned to accept their support in return—simply that.
So, we return to our fundamental questions: What does it mean to Do Something as an Olin student? Is being a voice for change our right or our obligation?
These days, with all the building pressure and dissatisfaction felt by the student body towards Olin College as an institution, I cannot deny that I feel an expectation to Do Something Institutional, both because I am an Oliner, which is its own conversation, and because I am disabled, which is this conversation.
I believe that, as a student, being a voice for change ismy right, not my obligation—so why, as a disabled student, do I so often feel pushed to speak?
Ultimately, yes, the College’s response to my disability has degraded my student experience to an extent. However, being told to Do Something Less Quiet in response to this—to Do Something Louder, Something Bolder, Something Inciting—makes me feel more like an outsider than an Oliner. And I wonder if other Oliners of other identities feel the same way. While I absolutely agree that speaking out is important, to say that Olin’s improper approach to my disability obligates me to speak out feels, to me, like it politicizes my identity as a disabled student. This seems dangerous: I carry my disabled identity with me everywhere I go. Do I then also carry the burden of representing psychotic people with me everywhere, too? A burden made even greater by the fact that there are so few psychotic students at Olin to even join the fight?
I take my right to my voice as a student seriously. And yet, why should my right to live my Olin life in quiet, treading my desire paths and supporting/being supported by friends along the way, be taken any less seriously? If I choose complacency for the rest it provides, am I less of an Oliner? What does it mean to Do Enough, and who decides?
I sit here, writing this article now because when times were at their toughest for me as a psychotic student at this school, I slept. Sleeping protected my mental stability and therefore my ability to be an Oliner. In a similar way, I believe Doing Something Quiet protects many students’ ability to be Oliners. I see no shame in it—and yet, I feel shame in having been quiet for so long. If that’s you—if you carry an identity with you as quietly as you can—keep going. Know that I have decided. I am Doing Enough. I am Oliner enough. You can decide the same, if you’d like.
Any and all thoughts appreciated: adeeter@olin.edu. Thanks for reading.
When I sent in my first-ever article to Frankly Speaking a month ago, I didn’t expect people to care so much. It was mostly a vent and a way to call some people out on their actions and let them know they need to improve.
But people listened, and honestly, that restored a lot of my faith in Olin. I have been watching and listening, keeping track of how others have reacted, and some have improved their actions and even apologized to black students for their past micro and macro aggressions.
I have been amazed by the way Oliners of all backgrounds have responded to my article. Some told me it made them finally feel seen, others said they weren’t surprised, but that it made them think more critically about this community, many sparked conversations because of it. Thank you for listening, and thank you for caring for those who chose to learn from my experience rather than see it an outlier.
Not all the responses to my article were positive, though, Some people forgot about the article immediately after reading it, some refused to read it after seeing the headline, some say it was exaggerated to cause drama—I’ve even heard some people believe that I’m not really black and that this was trying to smear Olin’s reputation.
Let me make a few things clear: nothing was exaggerated, the experiences I described in my article were real, and I am currently a black female student at Olin. In fact, I left out some horrible details.
The best thing to come from this article was that this helped strengthen and bring the black community at Olin together. So, if you are struggling with racism at Olin, come to a USB-C meeting. We can’t fix the system, but we can support you and give you a space where you are heard.
Other black students have shared with me that they faced similar experiences to mine. Many black students and staff have been told explicitly that they don’t belong here because they’re black. Many black students are called by the wrong name by their classmates and teachers, and we don’t say anything to avoid fights, but it hurts. When working on projects and research, our ideas are often ignored, and we have to push extra hard for a single idea to be considered. These racist practices have been normalized at Olin, and that is what makes for such a toxic environment.
Many unconsciously believe that we can’t be racist because we are a small, liberal engineering school in Massachusetts. The answer is that everything is rooted in racism in the USA. Spaces like Olin that try to pretend systemic racism doesn’t exist, will only perpetuate the problem. The only way to actually combat racism is to talk about it. Acknowledge how your privilege will disadvantage others. Recognize the power you hold over others. Stop believing that you aren’t the problem. We all are, including me. If you want to learn more about confronting internal bias, I recommend reading some of Ibram X. Kendi’s books, many you can get through the library. To those who claim they want to change, here is your first step.
Olin says it wants to get better, but know that I will keep watching. I will keep providing a safe space for other black students. I will follow intently everything the administration does to better support their students.
At this point in the housing process, you might be asking yourself: “Why would I choose to live in a triple? Isn’t it just worse than a double?” We wrote this article to challenge this idea on the grounds that when a triple is formed voluntarily, it can actually be a better experience than doubling—particularly for current first-years.
The primary benefit that a first-year has to gain from tripling next year is a route to living in an East Hall room. The brunt of our argument is going to be about this; as such, this article might be of less interest to upperclassmen who are guaranteed space in East Hall already. However, we noticed that during room selection last year, many of our peers (then first-years) strongly preferred a West Hall double over even an East Hall triple. This instinct—which mostly comes from a fear that triples will be physically and socially uncomfortable—is what we are disputing.
Let’s talk about physical space first. Despite common misconception, our triple in EH419 is incredibly roomy. Altogether, we have three beds, three desks, three dressers, one minifridge, three milk crate shelves, two coffee tables, one bookshelf, two grappling hooks, one parking gate, and an extremely comfortable beanbag (that’s over seven extra pieces of furniture!). With thoughtful organization, we’ve kept a central floor space open for large gatherings, and a cozy reading nook fit for three. Taking additional steps like lofting a bed (which double rooms are not guaranteed access to) and leaning into vertical storage space has only made our room feel bigger.
Besides the stellar physical layout, we enjoy how our triple has allowed us to embrace a communal living style. Each roommate has a desk, a bed, and some closet space to call their own, but “ownership” of certain drawers, shelves, beanbag(s), and fridge space has completely blended together. For example, one of the dressers in our room serves as clothing storage in one drawer and shared dishware in another! When a roommate has a need, we all pitch in to meet that need—collectively. Shared grocery runs for snacks and medication have become commonplace, and instead of splitting the cost an even three ways every time, we simply rotate who makes the trip. We’ve found that we’re able to consistently lean on each other when we’re sick or busy, and that’s because of the significant trust we’ve built up as housemates.
This is all to say that we’ve learned a lot in the process of making our triple experience a successful one, and we’d like to offer guidance on how you can, too. In particular, there are a few archetypes of triple residents that make for an exceptional rooming experience:
#1 – The Host: You love having groups of friends over, and you want a space that can be utilized as a prime hangout spot. Our room functions in this capacity: we regularly host groups of five or more friends, and we’ve run events like the Halloween Coffee Bar that have comfortably fit 20+ people at once. If you’re especially excited about suite life, consider that the spacious triple room functions as a lively suite lounge, especially with furniture additions like ottomans and tables.
#2 – The Traveler: You probably sleep in your room and not much else. Whether you’re camping in the woods, studying in the library, or just hanging out in the antelounge until 4am, “room time” isn’t a priority. By choosing to triple, you get the benefits of a large home base that isn’t wasted when you’re out and about.
#3 – The Homebody: Your priority is having a comfortable space to decompress and work. Though it might seem counterintuitive, this type of person can be a great fit for a triple with the right configuration of roommates and clever physical arrangement. A triple can look like a comfortable, quiet, and symbiotic relationship between three of these kinds of individuals—and this person can also make for a great combination with a Traveler or two!
A lot of our success has hinged on a willingness to communicate openly and compromise. Our roommate agreement, along with regular “family meetings”, gives us space to establish and modify rules as needed. For example, we decided that if one roommate wants to sleep, all socializing moves elsewhere – no questions asked. This is one way we’ve become comfortable setting and respecting boundaries, and as a result, we can make compromises before they become problems.
As an extension of this idea, it is important for you as a community member to acknowledge that your housing preferences exist within a broader context. By considering triple formations that you would feel comfortable living in, you’re helping ResLife make space for other residents that have particular housing needs. If you’re nervous about tripling, consider that there may still be a configuration that you would feel happy in—and take steps to find one!
The final thing worth considering—specifically for first years—is that you should plan a triple configuration because you might just have to live in one. Planning for this outcome will save you from a surprise roommate scramble on room selection day if your place in the selection order isn’t what you expected. That being said, we hope you’ll find that, like us, your triple configuration and future room will be preferable to any double.
If this article wasn’t convincing enough, then let us show you rather than tell you. Come to EH419 on the evening of March 6th to get a sense of what your triple experience could look like next year. We’ll have snacks!
