The Luxury of Living On Campus

December 2019

After a long day of classes I make my way to the gates of Warren Towers on 700 Commonwealth Avenue, the largest dorm building at Boston University (BU). I swipe in my Terrier card and I am greeted by the familiar smile of the Warren security guard who waves hello from behind the glass window. I wave back and walk towards the elevators, eager to unwind from the day’s classes.

But as I walk past the dining hall, the scent of Asian-style wok noodles makes its way to me. Before I know it the sound of my grumbling stomach stops me in my tracks and takes me to the dining hall for dinner. I scan the seemingly infinite stations serving gourmet pizza, steamed vegetable bowls, grilled chicken and pasta until I decide on a fresh mixed green salad from the salad bar and pan-fried vegetable noodles from Warren’s famed Pan-Asian wok station. 

My floormate joins me for a shared dessert of crunchy apple crumble and hot green tea. The dining hall is buzzing with students rushing in from classes, mingling with friends and savoring their meals. Through Warren’s floor-to-ceiling windows I glimpse the sun descend behind the iconic Citgo sign in Kenmore Square.  

When the clock strikes 9 p.m. I enter the game room for a much-needed break from studying. The clacking sound of sticks striking balls on the green billiard tables mixed with friends chatting engulf the room. 

 On my way to my room on the thirteenth floor of Warren’s A Tower, “goodnights” echo from the dorm rooms into the dimly lit hallway. In my cosy double room, my roommate and I exchange goodnights. It’s my turn tonight to close the curtains on the view of dotted fluorescent lights emitting from Fenway Park and BU’s Charles River campus.  

With the exception of alleviating financial costs, living on campus is viewed by students as inferior to living off campus. However, dorms provide many amenities and opportunities to students not available off campus. At Boston University, living in on-campus dormitories can contribute to a positive college experience for students.

There are ten dorm-style residences at Boston University scattered on Commonwealth Avenue and Bay State Road. The dorms on Bay State Road afford students the experience of living in Boston’s classic brownstones opposite the Charles River. John Quinn, a Questrom junior, lives in a two-bedroom dorm in a beautiful brownstones tucked in the charming tree-lined Bay State Road.

“I love living on Bay State Road because it’s so close to school and a minute walk to my classes,” Quinn says while staring with laser-eyed focus at his television screen and fumbling with his fingers on the playstation joystick. 

Quinn’s dorm room wall is customized with colorful posters of his favorite rappers, ASAP Rocky and Travis Scott, and a BU flag hangs beside his desk. Dorm rooms similar to Quinn’s feature walk-in closets and private bathrooms, which he cites as a major attraction to living on Bay State Road. 

Quinn pauses his game and stretches his arms behind his swivel chair. “I used to live in West Campus and HoJo that have amazing views but I love having my own private bathroom and walk-in closet so the room is definitely not as messy as my previous rooms,” he lightly laughs while swinging his chair left and right. 

“Living in West Campus my freshman year did allow me to make friends pretty quickly,” Quinn reflects fondly. “I loved living there a lot because I got to know more people.”

Each residence gives students the opportunity to form tight-knit communities and create bonds with roommates and floormates they may have never encountered in a large-scale university like Boston University. After all, BU houses 75 percent of undergraduate students according to US News’ Best Colleges list. Spending time in dorms is an opportunity for students to introduce themselves to people on their floor, study, hang out and eat in the dining hall together. 

Various dining meal plans are available for dorm students to enjoy eating in the dining halls. Since students are busy juggling college work, internships and social life, accessibility to dining halls with prepared fresh meals saves students time and money spent at grocery stores, cooking their own meals, or ordering online, which includes the dreaded additional delivery and tax fees.

Luckily dining halls have an “all-you-care-to-eat” policy; swipe in your terrier card and eat whichever portion and dish you desire. From wok-style noodles to mixed greens salad to whipped cream on apple pie. The options are unlimited. 

Most students don’t have to leave the comfort of their dorm building when they’re hungry. At the Warren Towers and West Campus students have direct access to the residence dining halls. Late-night dining stays open until 2 a.m. and serves comfort foods such as onion rings, french fries and smoothies to keep students fueled while studying on those familiar late-night study sessions.  

Dining halls cater to students who have vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free diets. The dining halls also provide certified kosher and halal products, which can be hard to find in Boston. Students can take their taste buds all around the world with the availability of international cuisines. Fresh Foods Co. of Marciano Commons showcases dishes from different countries ranging from spicy Asian burritos to Middle Eastern shawarma wraps. 

“I go to Marciano Commons the most to eat and the best food there is noodles,” says Tina Wang, a senior from China. Thanks to the dining halls, international students like Wang can get a taste of home while studying at BU. 

Wang lives in a ten-story brownstone dorm-style building on Beacon Street ideally tucked between Commonwealth Avenue and Back Bay. The centrally-located Beacon Street dorms offer students the best of both worlds. 

“I love my dorm building because it’s near Newbury Street so I can go shopping frequently,” Wang bursts into laughter. “The BU bus station is outside my dorm so I can take the bus straight to COM for my classes.”

Wang sips a refreshing iced pink dragon fruit drink at Starbucks located near her dorm building. For students who crave food outside the dining halls, on-campus restaurants and cafes like sushi bar Basho Express, Blaze Pizza and Starbucks are mere footsteps away from the residences. 

Both Wang and Quinn credit living on-campus for forming more friendships. “Bay State Road is a smaller and friendlier environment,” Wang adds. “I made a lot of friends there.” 

Living on campus enhances student social life and the ability to make friends due to the close proximity to other students. Dorms are exclusive to students but apartment building residents are often a combination of families and working individuals so the different age demographic can make it difficult to establish friendships. In dorms, students can create a support system while being away from home. 

In an urban-based university, safety comes first. The Boston University Police Department and security personnel on campus monitor whoever enters the dorms. On a Friday night in Student Village (StuVi), students swipe their Terrier cards in turns into a grey machines, either flashing green to enter or red to deny entry. Security guards work round the clock from their booths monitoring the waves of students entering the residence. 

“I really like having security here, it makes me feel safer,” says junior Keely Missinne, casually lounging back on a dark green couch in the center of the StuVi lobby and pointing over her shoulder at two security guards. 

StuVi’s two high-rises dominate the skyline of Commonwealth Avenue, towering over other buildings on campus. StuVi, as it is colloquially referred to by BU students, could be easily confused for a luxury hotel. The lobby is dimly lit for ambience and features a rotary couch in the center flanked by four metal columns and posters of minimalist art posters. 

“I feel like I have a hotel room, it’s so wonderful,” Missinne says while smiling. “You can’t beat the view, it’s just a view that I will never be able to afford after I graduate so it’s nice to enjoy that with friends and always bumping into people.”

A testament to StuVi’s impressive reputation is earning the fourth spot on Complex Magazine’s 2013 list of “Coolest College Dorms in America” written by Phoenix Phillips. 

Phillips writes: “There's 24-hour security, walk-in closets for all your old-school Star Wars paraphernalia, spendy single apartments and shared apartments, study rooms scattered throughout the giant building, music practice rooms, and secure bicycle storage perfect for the quintessential Beantown biking lifestyle.” 

StuVi is included in the top twenty of College Consensus’s editor list of “35 Best College Dorms” in 2018. 

“It’s one of the swankiest student residences in the region, and that’s saying a lot – since StuVi2 opened in 2009, many other urban universities have followed suit,” lauds the article on College Consensus. 

Missinne has her own room in a suite she shares with seven girls she considers her close friends. She spends most of her time in the study room or on the 26th floor common room watching movies. The glamorous common room features sky-high panoramic views of the Charles River and Cambridge. 

“I had the opportunity to go off-campus and the pros of living in StuVi outweigh those of living off-campus, mainly for the security and being close to friends,” Missinne said. “I feel really close to everything.”

When students choose to live in the dorms, they can socialize, dine and study all within the safe space of their dorm rooms. The true luxury is having these opportunities right at their doorstep. On-campus housing at BU is as diverse as students’ lifestyles and personalities. From the tight-knit Bay State brownstones to the glamorous high-rises of StuVi and the centrally-located Warren Towers, there is a place for every student. 

Student Village, 33 Agganis Way, Boston, Mass. (Courtesy of Boston University)

Student Village, 33 Agganis Way, Boston, Mass. (Courtesy of Boston University)

The Cynical Duchess: The Not-So Glamorous Side of Being a Student Blogger

Minimalist in design, well curated, and organised are among the first impressions one makes when scrolling through the lifestyle blog The Cynical Duchess. The blog is divided into music, fashion, travel and opinion categories. The eponymous cynical duchess is 22- year-old Boston University sophomore Batsheva Dweck. The name ‘Cynical Duchess’ is a play on Batsheva’s last name Dweck, and the satirical tone in most of her posts. Dweck describes her blog’s niche as lifestyle but with a different take on the mainstream: hipster and street style mixed in with underground culture. 

 

Dweck spends most of her time at the George Sherman Union, which is crowded with students at lunchtime. She is seated in her usual spot, a small table in the middle of the bustling union, with a mini Torah on top of an endless pile of textbooks. The blog’s neat design is a stark contrast to the blogger herself, curls stray out from her dishevelled bun, and she is wearing an olive military jacket splashed with white paint. “I painted it myself.” she proudly said. Dweck is scanning her Mandarin notes and stressing about an upcoming midterm. She only has an hour for an interview before leaving to study with her Chinese classmates at Mugar Library. At the same time, she is expecting a call from a dating coach. 

 

Currently, Dweck is a Film major at Boston University’s College of Communication and also interns at the Famous Company, a music agency for unsigned artists. “I’ve interviewed artists and review albums for them,” she said, which is why initially she majored in journalism, but decided to switch. “I feel like I want to learn new skills that I don’t have, for example film production, editing, cinematography,” said Dweck. Multi-tasking is something every college student learns to get accustomed to. For Dweck, juggling schoolwork, an internship and her blog means she must make tough choices when she ultimately has to prioritize getting a college degree over pursuing her passion, blogging. 

 

Blogging has become a trend in our Internet obsessed world; many lifestyle bloggers project an idealistic image and lifestyle that seems effortless. In reality, blogging is a serious and time-consuming endeavour, requiring great commitment, organisation and drive. Blogging is a long process, much goes on behind the scene to create the perfect post. You have to hire a photographer, scout locations, put together an outfit, write and publish the blog post, and network on different social media platforms for maximum exposure. It can be difficult to find time and effort to be a blogger as a college student. 

 

As a result of her busy life, Dweck struggles with finding time for personal activities. When asked about maintaining a work life balance, she responds: “Unfortunately, I don’t maintain it well at all.” Dweck’s busy schedule means long nights doing homework after finishing her internship along with her radio show at BU. “It’s so much work” she says. Dweck’s roommate said, “You know Batsheva, I would be a good blogger… If I had no life.” Dweck takes no offense, she agrees with this statement as a perfect summary of blogging. The difficulty of being a student and blogger at the same time means that Dweck often feels pressure to prioritize the former over the latter. “Honestly, my blog has been on hiatus for the last couple of months because I could not handle doing schoolwork and being a blogger at the same time,” she says. “At this time in my life, I’m just putting my school work first.” 

 

Although Dweck seems confident about this statement, she sometimes doubts her decision when she feels it is affecting her blog’s success. “I just got this email from a company called Carbon Coco, who want me to review their products. I said yes and they sent me their stuff a few days ago, but I emailed them saying ‘Hi, I can’t really do anything on my blog until May, would that be okay?’” Dweck says. The summer break is the only time she can fully concentrate on her blog. However, there doesn’t seem to be any possibility of shutting down her blog completely, despite the academic pressure. The Cynical Duchess acts as an outlet for self-expression and maintaining individuality.“I do want to work in something that I enjoy doing,” she wrote in her most recent blog post. 

 

Like many college students, Dweck’s main priority is financial security after college. In a sense, if The Cynical Duchess becomes profitable, Dweck would not have to worry about securing a day job after graduation. Dweck aspires to turn The Cynical Duchess into a business by working with more companies. Many bloggers profit from sponsorships by collaborating with brands to promote their products. The Cynical Duchess’s slogan is ‘A different take on the mainstream’, which could be affected by influence from companies. Criticism has been aimed against bloggers who ‘sell out’ by endorsing products rather than maintaining their creative independence. Dweck is not concerned with being perceived as a sell out, in fact she takes pride in it. “Selling out and not selling out is the difference between a Van Gogh and an Annie Leibovitz. They are both very successful but Van Gogh died poor, starving and not famous while Annie Leibovitz photographs celebrities and is now giving master classes. She uses her art as a business and I don’t see anything wrong with that.” she says. 

 

However, for Dweck, it isn’t just about making ends meet, having a profitable blog can also create a sense of entrepreneurship. “I didn’t start telling people about my blog until I felt confident about it…working with actual companies and making a bit of money off of it.” she says. “Now when people look at it, they tell me ‘Wow, that’s a really cool website you have!’” Dweck’s success with the blog was not immediate: “Back in 2015, I was still a ‘dot-blog’ girl and got maybe like 5 comments a post, I didn’t tell people I had a blog.” she says. Her pride in her blog is due to the fact that it was out of her own initiative. The more Dweck considers her blog a business, the more she struggles with sacrificing time to focus on schoolwork. In finals week last semester, she decided to go to New York City to interview a singer for her blog, it was an opportunity she could not miss. “This is a piece of website that I invested in and people like it enough to invest in me,” she says. 

 

Dweck also struggles with balancing her religious views and blogging, since she is one of the few Orthodox Jews at Boston University. “I’m not even sure what I’m doing can be considered modest.” She says, “I’m not sure which of my friends are going to be reading my stuff.” Batsheva acknowledges that she can lose business but ultimately her Judaism is much more important and valuable than money. This is another obstacle Dweck faces to her hope of creating a YouTube channel. “Until now, I’ve been a little bit scared to because I come from a more conservative background where it’s not so smiled upon for people to put themselves out there,” Dweck explains. Her determination to balance her personal beliefs and passion isn’t necessarily a restriction. “I figured out a way to do it conservatively. Like making documentaries and videos that aren’t necessarily putting me at the center of attention,” she says. 

 

“I’m actually working on my first video now” says Dweck. “It’s Chinese people try Jewish food. We have everything, we just need a location.”

Written in April 2018.

Community Paint Night

BOSTON —Nayma Tasnim Islam discovered that one of her suitcases was lost whilst emigrating from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to Boston in 2011. Her mother saved every painting, from her first watercolor of a sparrow when she was five years old, to national exhibition paintings she did as a college student, but all were gone in that one suitcase. 

“When I found out, it was painful,” she said in an interview on Sunday. “I wish I still had them now to have something to look back on.” 

Islam, 32, who lives in Boston and is a software engineer, organizes and teaches a community painting night at her mosque in Boston to help people find relief in art from stress. 

“Keeping that creative part of our mind running is important because if you look at day-to-day life, it’s very mechanical,” she said. 

Students at the community painting, open to everyone over the age of 9, benefit by painting, relaxing, and reflecting on topics Islam discusses, such as faith, nature and creativity. 

“[Art is] like a source of therapy when you’re a grown-up,” she said, “In my class, [I give] only one grade, and that’s excellent. You don’t go lower than that.” 

Art-based projects led to significantly reduced levels of anxiety, according to a 2011 study by the American Art Therapy Association. 

Art was a comfort to Islam when she went through an identity crisis as an immigrant, including facing discrimination in the workplace and culture shock. 

Yet, in the U.S., public participation in the arts is low. 

Around 23.8 percent of the U.S. adult population saw visual arts, attended a crafts fair or visual arts festivals in 2017, according to a survey of Public Participation in the Arts by the NEA, a federal agency supporting American arts, and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Islam held two painting nights on Oct. 28 and Feb. 24 at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC), the largest mosque in New England. 

The ISBCC provided Islam a platform to share her artwork at an Eid Bazaar, the annual religious gathering at the mosque, and to host her painting workshop. 

Islam expresses her faith through the hijab, a traditional head cover, and art. 

She believes it is her God-given responsibility to help others through her artistic ability. 

“The way hijab is my identity, art is my identity,” she said. 

Transitioning from Bangladesh to Boston was difficult because unlike in Bangladesh, where Islam won national art competitions as an undergraduate student, she cannot host exhibitions in the U.S. since drawing people is forbidden in Islamic art. 

When Islam arrived to attend Northeastern University on a student visa, she couldn’t decide whether to work or pursue an MBA. 

Naturalized U.S. citizens are 13.7 percent of Boston’s population, according to the Boston Planning and Development Agency in 2017. 

Ansa Nisar, 23, a project manager from Connecticut, helps Islam organize the event and even participates herself.  

“I personally love painting because it helps me to relax and relieve stress,” she said while grabbing paintbrushes at paint night. “I think this is a great for anyone with a stressful work life … to come together as a community.”  

Rikuto Uezoni, 20, sophomore anthropology major at Boston University, from Japan, said he went to community painting to try something different from his college studies. 

“This is my first time painting,” he said. “I get useful advice on colors and shapes.” 

Islam also volunteers in sustainable gardening projects at ISBCC and teaches Islam at a Sunday school in the Islamic Center of Boston, Wayland. 

Islam’s previous artwork was inspired by the social, familial and identity pressures she said she faced as an undergraduate student at Bangladesh’s Military Institute of Science and Technology. 

Now, Islam prefers painting landscapes, inspired by her travels around the U.S. 

Islam chose a landscape portrait of snow-capped mountains reflected on a lake with fall foliage in the foreground, at Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, for the students to recreate at her second art night. 

“I hope everybody came with high spirits,” she said. 

Boston's First Muslim-Run Transitional Shelter

BOSTON– At a Dorchester homeless transitional shelter Friday at noon, Ayesha Kazmi puts the last few touches on the application of a homeless woman to move into permanent affordable housing – the fourth resident this year.  

 

Kazmi is the director of the city’s first Muslim-run shelter, Amal Women’s Transitional Housing, the only shelter that allows homeless women and children to stay for six to 12 months, a model that allows people to break the cycle of homelessness, she said. 

 

“We have what we feel is a really successful program and that’s how we do things differently here,” said Kazmi in an interview on April 5. “We want to make sure that people find that stable ground to be able to move out.” 

 

The Amal shelter, which opened in March 2017, serves women and children for six to 12 months. Most shelters in Boston allow individuals to stay for shorter periods of time, typically up to three weeks, or they use a lottery system to gain a bed. 

 

Massachusetts had the highest increase in homelessness between 2017 and 2018 in the U.S., according to a 2018 report to Congress by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

 

Local advocates attribute this to the increase of rent in Boston, which makes it difficult for people to afford permanent homes.

 

“You officially have to be rich to rent in Boston,” read a tweet this week from Friends of Boston’s Homeless, a Boston nonprofit advocacy organization. “Please advocate for affordable housing in your community. Some day you'll probably need it.” 

 

Amal’s employees create goals for residents to find jobs or apply for affordable housing, which can take time. 

 

After years of living on the streets, homeless people experience insecurity that remains with them. 

 

“Our clients go from ecstatic when they become placed, to being in a state of anxiety on a day-to-day basis,” said Kazmi.

 

Boston has the third most expensive rent in the U.S. in 2019, according to Friends of Boston’s Homeless.

 

Homeless people looking for affordable housing in Boston can choose from subsidized, income-restricted and voucher housing.

 

About 9 percent of Boston’s residents live in housing supported by the Boston Housing Authority (BHA), Massachusetts’ public housing agency, according to the BHA. 

 

The voucher program, where residents pay 30 percent of their income while the BHA pays the remaining rent to the landlord, is currently closed to new applicants, except for veterans. 

 

The waiting time for an affordable home – often years long – means homeless people need more time at shelters, according to the BHA.

 

Amal’s residents go through a two-part screening process consisting of an application and interview to begin their housing process. 

 

Rosie’s Place is among the shelters that limit homeless women’s stays to three weeks, and they must wait two weeks to reapply for one of 20 beds through a lottery system.

 

“Because we are a three-week stay, they have to utilize some of the other shelters in the area,” said Megan Crawford, a Rosie’s Place advocate, in an interview on April 3. 

 

Shelters such as Rosie’s Place face over-crowdedness, increasing drug use and violence, said Crawford. 

 

“There’s an increasing drug use that we’re seeing pour into the shelters,” said Crawford. “Not everyone makes it the whole three weeks because we don’t allow anyone to stay under the effects of drugs or alcohol, some women can’t adhere to that.” 

 

Massachusetts has one of the lowest rates of unsheltered homeless people in the U.S., 4.9 percent of homeless are unsheltered, according to a 2018 report to Congress by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

 

Amal’s employees host a housing clinic every two weeks to help residents apply for affordable housing, as well as mental health counseling. 

 

“We want the women to reach self-sufficiency and to get back on their feet,” said Kadra Manif, 29, a volunteer at Amal, in an interview on March 25. 

 

Homeless people must meet eligibility requirements for subsidized and income-restricted housing, including earning a salary below Boston’s median income; the percentage of median income varies by the number of family members and apartment size.  

 

More than 75 percent of families selected for subsidized housing in Boston earn 30 percent or more of the area median income, which is $24,800, according to the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), the state housing agency running Section 8. 

 

However, Boston’s income-restricted housing is not affordable to many homeless people, who make lower or no income.

 

“Getting homeless people back into the job market or for the first time, they’re not making nearly enough for housing,” said Kazmi. 

 

On the other hand, Amal’s past residents include doctors and public school teachers who can’t afford Boston’s high rent but make too much to be eligible for public housing.

“Public school teachers … it’s criminal,” said Kazmi. “How is it possible that the city can’t even take care of its own?” 

 

Public housing residents are required to pay 30 to 32 percent of their total income toward rent, according to the Boston Housing Authority.

 

Amal continues to support residents once they move into affordable housing, such as donating furniture, to find stability in a permanent home. 

 

“Nice shelter or not, it is a really difficult place to be mentally and emotionally,” said Kazmi. “It’s so insecure.”