Pre-Rush 101

Now that orientation is probably finished, you are starting to think about moving, and bedding, and decorations and RUSH!! Omg! First things first, you need to get those rec letters. Call your high school to see if there are any alumni that could help you, mom/dad's friends, your friends' older sisters, aunts, grandmothers, cousins, whatever. The more rec letters you get the better. Send them in with a picture (if asked) and your resume (again if asked). Usually putting it on nicer paper looks good. And, BE ON TIME!! Don't miss the deadline!!! Also, don't freak out if you can't find any, you will still be fine. But they definitely can't hurt. Next, get as much info as you can about your respective school's rush (you may have to wait until a specific meeting). Usually, detailed information about schedules, parties, attire, etc is handed out to you. So, you are never in the dark. When you get all this information, start looking for dresses ASAP! You don't want to be stressed because you don't have anything to wear. Consult older siblings/alumni! We love to help! Cover up ALL and ANY questionable facebook material. Delete it. Untag yourself. Whatever it takes. We stalk ya'll on facebook. Don't let us think something is wrong about you by the way your facebook APPEARS. Ask to be friends with current sisters. We may not be able to friend request YOU, but usually, if you find US, we can accept! Remain OPEN MINDED!! Each chapter of a sorority is very different and each individual will fit in with different people. Just because your biological sis went XYZ doesn't mean you will fit perfectly there too (even though that CAN happen)! Lastly, DON'T start freaking out. You have a while to get everything together and prepare. Just ask lots of questions. The more you know, the less stressed you will be. And then, you can help all the other freshmen girls who are rushing! :)

Caio

Stay posted for more tips on rush, especially the closer it gets!

J

Joie's Life Lessons

As I was digging deep in my memory bank to remember the life lessons I tried to teach Nick and Trey on our train ride from Paris to Rome earlier in the summer, I realized that they would be great to share (at least I think so). So, here are "Joie's 10 Life Lessons:"

1. You can't always get what you want.
2. Always be ready for a curve ball.
3. Life is tough and messy; Get a helmet and an apron.
4. Go big or go home.
5. Planning is essential but spontaneity is imperative.
6. Trust sincerely, laugh often and love deeply.
7. Be cautious but take risks-get crazy.
8. Have no regrets; Instead, focus on the things you can change.
9. Give 150% all the time.
10. You can't always be right.

That's what I have learned from life in the past 21 years. I wonder if my lessons will change in a year, 5 years or 10 years???....Probably. But, nonetheless, this is what I have for the college chapter of your book.

Caio

J

Dorm Style Tips

There are some decorations, no matter where you go to college, that can always enhance the dingy dorm room. Buying a big, soft and colorful rug adds something soft for your feet to walk on and covers the boring, ugly and cold floors. Lighting is never ideal; so, investing in a cute, bright lamp can really help liven up the room, literally and figuratively :) Most dorm rooms are only furnished with a desk, bed and dresser drawers. Finding a tall and thin nightstand or shelf can add more top space for pictures, clock/iHome, jewelry box, etc. I am thinking of a specific one found at Target last August. It was white and so cute! Some rooms are just big enough to add a chair. This is great to have for visitors if you have the luxury of this extra space. Framed pictures, posters, whatever your preference, make sure to add something to the walls! A luxury I never got to have because Dorm Suite Dorm products were unavailable to me when I entered college is the desk chair cover. If I could go back and add one thing to my decorations, it would be this. The desk chairs are hideous and Sheri, Dorm Suite Dorm designer and owner, makes them look PRECIOUS while matching the rest of your room, and with a monogramming option. (See above picture)



I would also highly suggest investing in a feather mattress pad. This was the best $50 I spent the summer before leaving for college. It has lasted me years and has made my very hard and uncomfortable dorm mattresses SO COMFORTABLE! Make sure to buy a mattress cover as well. Most college beds are twin XL. I would get 2-3 sets of sheets and tons of pillows to decorate with and to put against the ugly, hard wall. And, don't forget a good blanket and duvet/comforter/coverlet.

There is so much to remember to bring to college. I hope this helps a little bit. (This is just some of it....there is so much more you need to bring too. I will do a blog, closer to August, of a "To Bring to College Checklist."

caio

J

Organization is Key

As you are probably all well aware, typical college dorm rooms are pretty small. In order to maximize every square inch of your dorm room, you should plan to keep all of your clothes, shoes, purses, and personal belongings as organized as possible. From living on campus for three years, I have some organizational suggestions:

*Raise the bed, just enough to store plastic bins underneath. (You can buy risers from Target, Wal-Mart and online) I would not suggest lofting it (this makes it SUPER high). It gets really aggravating having to climb a latter in and out of bed EVERYDAY (even though you get more room space).

*Portable storage drawers and plastic bins. (Target, Wal-Mart, Office Depot, Office Max) These are great to store under your bed, in your closet (if you have the room), or in your bathroom (if not community). Clothes, shoes, hair products, make-up, anything can go in here. The drawers are great for office supplies and the big bins are great for blankets, purses or seasonal clothing, if you are far away from home.

*Shoe rack/shelves. (Target, Wal-Mart, Bed Bath and Beyond) If you are anything like me, you have a ton of shoes! I love shoes! The easiest and best way to bring them all to college is to have either a hanging shoe rack to put in your closet or a shoe shelf to hide somewhere.

*Shelving! (Target, Wal-Mart, Bed Bath and Beyond, maybe Michaels/Hobby Lobby) This is great for books, binders, notebooks or decorations. It adds something to the, usually, ugly wall and gives you more floor space.

*Second bar for your closet. (Target, Wal-Mart) This will allow you to hang your clothes on two bars instead of one.

*Labels. (Target, Wal-Mart, Michaels/Hobby Lobby) Label all of your bins, manila folders, binders, notebooks, etc. You will thank yourself later.

*Laundry bag/basket. (Target, Wal-Mart) This may be a little obvious, but you never know, some people forget this and it is so important!

*Jewelry box/other smaller bins that serve a specific purpose. Definitely have one jewelry box so you always know where your jewels are. You never know with random people around these residence halls. Other bins, (i.e. I have a basket for paychecks and day-to-day paperwork and then another basket for snacks) are important to classify together and to use efficiently.

*Food storage. Baskets/storage bins are good for fruit or other small snacks. One big shelf devoted to food also works well. You have to play around with this a little bit to make it work for your situation. (While on the topic of food, I would definitely suggest bringing a refrigerator and a microwave!!)

Please don't hesitate to email me with questions or concerns at joie@dormsuitedorm.com

Caio

J

Visual Help

Bailey Westcott, a recent high school graduate and customer of Dorm Suite Dorm, reminded me tonight of the importance of visual aids. It is important, especially in design, to create a mock-up or an example of your thoughts, ideas, and desires before ordering or explaining what you want to someone else. It is really hard to portray all design ideas in words; so, a picture could be very useful. After all, a picture speaks a thousand words, right?

Bailey decided to use Microsoft Power Point to create a picture of her bedding ideas. She sent these to Sheri, designer and owner of Dorm Suite Dorm, so that her order would turn out exactly how she wanted. (Her picture is to the right).

This is a great strategy to use, not only in dorm room bedding. I find pictures help with new hair cuts, drapery, custom-made clothing, or as an aid in explaining your ideas.

J

Roommate Drama

Tons of people, including many of my high school friends, are so anxious to be independent that they decide to live in an apartment, condo or house starting their freshman year of college. Though I am biased to the alternative, I have many legitimate reasons:

1. To meet new people and make new friends. All the action is on campus. If you aren’t living on campus, you will miss it. You may have action of your own, but the opportunity to meet new, random people decreases when living in an apartment complex, house or condo. In comparison, living in a dorm residency with 600 other freshman creates many opportunities for craziness.

2. Convenience. Typical colleges place their freshmen in the dead center of campus (because they are freshmen). Thus, your walk to class could take 5-15 minutes instead of 20-45 minutes! This alone is a big enough reason to heavily weigh living on campus!

3. The “college experience.” There is something called the “college experience.” This is really hard to explain, but without living on campus, you miss out on this part of college. A typical college student goes through living in an old, dusty, dirty dorm room. The typical college student shares a bathroom with 12 other people. The typical college student has a room only big enough for 2 beds, 2 desks, 2 chairs and 2 sets of drawers. This all makes your freshman year….trust me.

4. Closer to the food. Since you’re most likely to be in the middle of campus, you are also most likely right by the cafeteria or food court or source of food that you are probably also, most likely, having to pay for with your tuition. Living on campus makes eating easy J During late night paper writing, finals or party, this comes in REAL handy! You get hungry ya know?!

5. Don’t have to pay bills. This is something most college freshmen don’t even know exist; HOWEVER, when you are in an apartment, house or condo, you will have to pay for gas, electric, water, cable, internet and phone. This can make life somewhat more complicated. Why deal with this your freshman year? Your first year is strictly for adjustment and fun! Leave the bills to sophomore, junior or even senior year.

Don’t get me wrong. You should DEFINITELY live off campus before you graduate. I like to think it is suppose to all be baby steps into the “real world.” Live on campus, no bills or financial responsibility. Live off campus, no financial responsibility but a little more conscientiousness about life. Graduate. Be prepared for what is to come! Don’t make yourself grow up toooooooo fast J And enjoy participating in the typical “college experience.”

J

Why should you live on campus your freshman year of college?

Tons of people, including many of my high school friends, are so anxious to be
independent that they decide to live in an apartment, condo or house starting
their freshman year of college. Though I am biased to the alternative, I have
many legitimate reasons:

1. To meet new people and make new friends. All the action is on campus. If you aren’t living on campus, you will miss it. You may have action of your own, but the opportunity to meet new,
random people decreases when living in an apartment complex, house or condo. In comparison, living in a dorm residency with 600 other freshman creates many opportunities for craziness.

2. Convenience. Typical colleges place their freshmen in the dead center of campus (because they are freshmen). Thus, your walk to class could take 5-15 minutes instead of 20-45 minutes! This alone is a big enough reason to heavily weigh living on campus!

3. The “college experience.” There is something called the “college experience.” This is really hard to explain, but without living on campus, you miss out on this part of college. A typical
college student goes through living in an old, dusty, dirty dorm room. The typical college student shares a bathroom with 12 other people. The typical college student has a room only big enough for 2 beds, 2 desks, 2 chairs and 2 sets of drawers. This all makes your freshman year….trust me.

4. Closer to the food. Since you’re most likely to be in the middle of campus, you are also most likely right by the cafeteria or food court or source of food that you are probably also, most
likely, having to pay for with your tuition. Living on campus makes eating easy During late night paper writing, finals or party, this comes in REAL handy! You get hungry ya know?!

5. Don’t have to pay bills. This is something most college freshmen don’t even know exist; HOWEVER, when you are in an apartment, house or condo, you will have to pay for gas, electric, water, cable, internet and phone. This can make life somewhat more complicated. Why
deal with this your freshman year? Your first year is strictly for adjustment and fun! Leave the bills to sophomore, junior or even senior year.

Don’t get me wrong. You should DEFINITELY live off campus before you graduate. I like to
think it is suppose to all be baby steps into the “real world.” Live on campus,
no bills or financial responsibility. Live off campus, no financial responsibility but a little more conscientiousness about life. Graduate. Be prepared for what is to come! Don’t make yourself grow up toooooooo fast and enjoy participating in the typical “college experience.”

J

10 Ways to Design Your College Career

I am fully aware that no one thinks about DESIGNING their college career.....they just GO to college-I was one of those people. But hindsight is a beautiful thing. If I could do it over again, here is how I would design:

1. Believe everyone when they tell you college will FLY by. Why will it fly by? Because these 4, or 5 or 6, years will be the absolute best years of your life. Why should I believe them? So that you don't waste ANY of your precious college time doing something you don't want to be doing. Realizing the truth to this statement also helps you to appreciate each moment, even more!

2. Figure out what you like and what you don't like so that you don't have to waste a bunch of time taking classes that may not transfer to a different department. Take a personality test and a career assessment test. (all available online). Starting college somewhat knowing what you want also allows you to take lighter loads each semester. Which leads me to...

3. Don't take more than 5 classes in one semester. Just don't do it, unless of course you don't want to have a social life and you really REALLY don't want to sleep. So take an extra semester to graduate. You won't regret it. (tell the rents you want to focus on the classes so you can keep up or improve your GPA...but then you kinda have to follow through).

4. Seek and listen to advice, help, guidance from career counselors, departmental advisers, professors, current students (upperclassmen) or the admissions recruiters. All of these people know the happenings of your respective college and they can guide you better than ANYBODY else on how to schedule, socialize, study (basically, how to get the most out of your college experience)! It is amazing how people enjoy helping other people...they would be thrilled to help you (so don't think you would be bothering them)

5. Be ready for a serious lesson in time management. Working (academics and financial) and playing both require time. It is going to be up to YOU to manage everything you want to do. Going to school, working, interning AND still having a social life is possible (I did it); but just know, something will take a toll (your health, sleep, your friends, your family, quality of your work or classwork).

6. Choose to customize and design your dorm room. Though you will most likely only be in your room to sleep, it is still your home for 2 full semesters (maybe more if you do interim or summer). So, put some time into making it feel like your home.

7. Research fun things to do in your respective town. MANY things will come up once you get there. But, in case no one else knows what's up around town, you will have the low down so y'all don't get bored!

8. Invest in storage bins. Because you are probably bringing your entire closet, 1-2 seasons at a time, AND you have all the other important parts of your room from home, you WILL need places to store clothes, shoes, purses, blankets, sheets, towels, office supplies, etc. I would also highly suggest labeling these plastic storage bins. It helps speed up the process of retrieving something from within it.

9. Don't mess around so much freshman year that your grades suffer. I have several friends who didn't care about their grades freshman year and suffered the remaining 3 years of college trying to boost their GPA. One year can really hurt your GPA. Though GPA's have become less important post-undergraduate school, they ARE important for the following reasons: graduate school admission, specific careers (i.e. accounting, finance, etc.) and differentiation on a job interview. Thus, a high GPA can aid is succeeding your goals in numerous ways. A good GPA can never be bad. But, on the flip side, a bad GPA can never be good!

10. Lastly, make a conscious effort to remain in touch with the people you care about back at home. Whether that be your family, high school friends, best friend, whoever. College has a funny way of removing you from home. It becomes REALLY easy to loose touch. Worst part about it is, you don't even realize it is happening until it may be too late (or until you return home).

Hope these make sense and end up helping you!

caio

J

THE Accent Color

Ok, so tonight I thought I would share my thoughts on the importance of an accent color, especially when choosing any pattern: animal, checkers, polka dots, stripes, etc. Accent colors bring the entire room together. All picture frames, bulletin boards, rugs, curtains, etc should match the accent color so that you can present a classy, consistent and clean dorm room. This works even better if you are fortunate enough to live with a roommate that you can compromise with; however, even if it is just your half that flows, that is better than none at all. Make sure accent colors are appropriate: solids, not too bright and complimentary of the pattern. If you ever have a question about style or fabrics, give us a call at 205-879-8278. We would love to help you make these important decisions or design your new home for your college experience.

J

No One Warned Me about Sleep Deprivation

As I sit here writing this blog, my eyes are being FORCED to stay open. This makes me remember how no one ever warned me that an integral part of being in college is NOT SLEEPING. This applies throughout the entirety of both semesters, every year, (but ESPECIALLY Freshman year of college). Obviously, it applies even more so during finals week; but even mid-semester, there is always something going on that you aren't going to want to miss out on....THUS, you forgo your sleep.

Quite honestly, I would encourage each of you to participate in this madness! College happens once, and you shouldn't miss some of the best memories you will make because it is 2 in the morning and you have a test the next day. I do not regreat any of my late college nights as a consequence of participating in events and being social. I am NOT NOT saying to set classwork aside. Bad grades will come back and haunt you one day before you graduate...promise! So, get your work done and then, don't miss out on anythng just because you are tired! Delirium proves to be very entertaining. So be prepared for sleep to go out the window. Besides, you can always sleep when you are dead...

J

Freshman Orientation Season

Ladies-

I am back from a long, but very fun, trip to Europe and realized that Orientation Season has officially begun since it is now June. Just 3 years ago, I remember traveling 5 hours from my home in New Orleans, LA to Birmingham, AL to go to my freshman orientation. I was so pumped and so scared at the same time.

I remember hating the dorm rooms. They were so ugly. I got so many ideas on how to decorate on this weekend because I knew exactly how I did NOT want my dorm room to look. I wish Dorm Suite Dorm had been around at that time!!

With heinsight bias and 3 years of undergraduate college under my belt, I would advise:

-Meet as MANY people as you can at orientation! Get phone #'s. Hook up on Facebook. Start getting to know people here so that when you return to school in the Fall you have some friends.
-LISTEN. All the orientation leaders really do know what they are talking about and want what is best for you. Their advice for your respective school is so valuable and should be listened to.
-Don't skip out because it sounds dumb. There are so many crazy, juvenile ice breaker games during freshman orientations, and though they sound so dumb, they are so fun and can help you meet a ton of people.
-Make sure you bring sheets (XL Twin), pillow, towel, bathroom caddy, shampoo, soap, slippers, blanket, pad, and pen.
-Be open and flexible to all the change and new people/environment you have entered into.
-You can't be instant best friends with someone. It takes time to get to know people again and build meaningful relationships. Give yourself time...it WILL happen.
-If you want to Rush, be on your ABSOLUTE BEST BEHAVIOR and clean up Facebook. We stalk yall, for serious. Don't let us think you are sketchy in ANY WAY! And be outgoing and friendly towards girls that are clearly Greek. Yall can approach us but we cannot approach yall!

Hope this helps with Orientation. Have fun. Be safe. Bon Chance!

Til next time,

J

"Director of Hip and Cool"
Dorm Suite Dorm
www.dormsuitedorm.com