Pieces of BGSU

With two brand-new residence halls on campus, I can imagine why they are filling up so quickly and why some might worry they will be stuck in some hall on the opposite side of campus.  I’m here to rid you of that worry.

When I was a freshman at BG, I lived in McDonald and I can honestly say (yes, honestly I promise) it was by far my favorite place I’ve lived to date.  I now I live in a house off campus, which is great for the size, kitchen and my own room, but I wouldn’t take back my freshman living arrangements, even if I could have lived off campus then.

I actually met my freshman year roommate on the BGSU Facebook page for the Class of 2013.  We met around February of my senior year and just began chatting. From there we decided we had enough in common (she didn’t seem to have any particular weird traits that might come out in living in such close quarters).  We decided on rooming with each other.

I knew some friends from high school that were attending BG, but I wanted to branch out and try living with someone new.  Best decision ever.  After we talked on Facebook for a couple months, we made plans to go to BG the same weekend and meet.  She had a sister that went there at the time and I had a friend so it worked out.  We met, and again, no weird traits upon meeting her and no red flags after meeting in person.  We both became more excited and though she lived in Cincinnati and I lived in Cleveland, we arranged to meet a couple more times that summer and visit before school.

We filled out our housing form, requested each other and then we both selected McDonald Hall as our No. 1 residence hall choice.  Her sister had lived there and told her it was the most fun and we HAD to live there.  We found out we were living in MacDonald, on the ground floor, an all-girls floor.

We were at first a little bummed that it was an all-girls floor only because we thought it might keep us from meeting a lot of the guys in the building since most of the other floors are co-ed.  However, I’ll say that our ground floor of all girls was probably the best thing to happen to all of us.  Through the Facebook page we were able to meet a ton of people living both on our floor and on the other floors in our hall.

I lived in Mac West and I’d say about 80 percent of the people I met in Mac are all my close friends to this day.  I even still live with my roommate from freshman year, third year in a row.  We live now with two other girls who lived on our floor in Mac and were roommates as well.

Now I’ll get to some of the reasons why I loved Mac so much other than the fact that I lucked out with a good roommate! First, it is almost all first-years and I can’t stress how much of a benefit this is.  Literally every student living there is going through the same transition and adjustment stage that you are going through in coming to BG.  Whether you live 10 minutes away or a plane ride away, you’re not alone.  One of the best things about this is that because everyone wants to meet new people, almost everyone leaves their door open.  You don’t have to if you want your privacy of course, but I do encourage you to keep your door open no matter what hall you end up in, at least the first week for times when you are just hanging out in your room.

The first day my roommate and I had our door open as we set up our things; I can’t tell you how many people stopped in and said hello within the first two hours.  It was such a welcoming hall and you could tell everyone was just as excited as we were to be there.  Like I said, my floor was an all-girls floor and it was almost like living with about 40 best friends by the end of the year.  Sounds cliché, but I couldn’t be more truthful.

Mac’s location is perfect; when I was there we had the old “Macateria” as our dining hall, which was conveniently located inside Mac.  Now, there’s a brand-new dining hall, “The Oaks”, right outside Mac.  That place is huge, it’s a one swipe “all-you-care-to-eat” dining hall.  It’s amazing.  The new dining hall right next door isn’t the only plus in Mac’s location; the union is about a three-minute walk.

The union is known as the heart of campus.  There are more dining options inside, places to study, events constantly going on and the information center as well as the campus bookstore.  Being close to the union is something you’ll definitely want; it’s my go to place for studying on the fourth floor.  Mac is also located right across the street from both the Life Science and Math Science buildings, so a lot of the general math and science courses freshmen have to take will be right in there.  That means you can wake up 10 minutes before class and be fine.

Mac is within a 10-minute walk to just about everything on-campus.  A lot of your classes throughout all of your years will probably be in Olscamp, or at least a couple.  Olscamp Hall is about a six-minute walk if I had to guess.  You can definitely make it in five if you’re feeling quick.  Like I said, it’s within a 10-minute distance to most buildings on campus.

I could go on and on about my experience at Mac, but I realize we all have things to do so I won’t! My roommates and Mac friends agree that we’d go back to those days in a heartbeat.  Living with hundreds of people the same age as you, all in similar situations is an experience in itself.  Mine was phenomenal and I owe a great deal of that experience to living in Mac.  So, good luck with your choices and I hope if you do live in McDonald Hall, your experience will be as great as mine J