Joshua Ceballos/Assistant Entertainment Director
Housing halls close April 29, and I don’t know about you, but I already feel like the fire alarms are going off and I need to pick the five things that are most important to me and jump out. Luckily, moving out doesn’t have to be as drastic as evacuating a burning building. With proper planning and enough know-how, residential students can rest easy.
Colton Goodman, graduate higher education administration student and assistant residential life coordinator for Panther Hall, says that it’s extremely important for students to know their dates.
“The move-out day specifically for students that are not graduating is April 29, but it depends on your schedule when it comes to your finals. What we ask is that as your final final comes around, we want you to move-out 24 hours after that time,” said Goodman.
The best plan for any occasion is to start the process early. Don’t get hung up about hanging up your shirts; leaving them all over the floor is a mistake. Start getting all of your clothes together and organized in your closet in advance to make it easier when it comes time to pack.
Goodman suggests that students start the packing process a week before their move-out date to give themselves ample time to get ready, and not make the classic mistake of signing up with their Resident Assistants (RAs) and having the room completely unprepared.
Speaking of packing, where does all this stuff go? You know that you were able to get your belongings into the rooms somehow… but now it seems like every article of clothing and each piece of junk has somehow multiplied, and the old suitcase seems to have shrunk.
Worry not! There’s a five letter solution to all of your packing needs: boxes. If you don’t have enough baggage space, there are plenty of cardboard boxes that you can find in and around campus, but just be careful what kinds of boxes you get.
“If [students] are getting boxes, it’s usually Walmart because they want those sturdy boxes. A lot of times the boxes that are tossed around the university, they get wet, they get soggy, they break; and I’ve seen a lot of students where they’re holding it and it just falls right through. It’s terrible,” said Goodman.
So here’s the plan of action: go to Walmart or any of the local stores around campus and ask for boxes, or ask your friends if they have any spares, and have them in your room a week in advance. Every day, set out to put away a good portion of your belongings beginning with the nonessentials.
If you don’t want your room to look barren for your last week, keep up your decorations and flare until the last day, but make sure not to forget them. Although I’m sure your RA wouldn’t mind getting a free band poster or bobble head.
By the last few days leading up to your assigned move-out date (which should be scheduled with your RA or at the front desk of your building), the only things not in boxes should be your last essential outfits, toiletries and sleeping essentials. These things probably won’t matter though, because with finals going on we’re all likely not sleeping or changing clothes very much.
Once your finals are done and the clock has struck, it’s time to actually move-out of your room. Your RA will come to your dorm to inspect it to make sure that everything is prepared for you to leave and for the building to get ready for the next round of students.
Each building has a set of carts that resident students can rent out to transport their boxes and bags to their cars, Zack and Cody style. During the move-out period, each building will have ten carts color coded for the building, and students can rent them out at their respective front desks for 30 minutes, according to Goodman.
For students who are moving to new housing over the summer, housing has special accommodations.
“We have that awkward transition phase in Lakeview North. So there’ll be rooms that we’ll move you to, where I would recommend keeping your stuff kind of close together, maybe having a suitcase of essentials because it’ll be about… two or four days that you might be living in there and then you will move to your space for the summer,” said Goodman.
For students who cannot leave by April 29 because of graduation or employment with housing can register for pre-approved housing extensions until Wednesday, May 3, according to information from University Housing sent via email.
If you need to stay in your housing for extra time without one of the pre-approved reasons, the rate is $100 per night past the closing date.
Oh My Gosh, Josh is a monthly column that discusses various issues that affect students.
Image retrieved from Flickr.
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