Study-abroad students lack housing choices

Before Keerthi Shetty ’09 went to study abroad at King’s College London in fall 2007, she participated in room draw and chose to live in a Spelman suite with three of her friends. When she came back from London, she couldn’t live with any of them.

For students who study abroad during the fall semester, readjusting to campus life is often made more difficult by limited say in where and with whom they will live.

Even before Shetty had left for London, she received an e-mail from the Housing Department informing her that her spot in the Spelman suite had been assigned to someone else.

“They call it ‘room improvement’ for the other person,” she said.

Students returning from study abroad are assigned to potentially unfamiliar roommates because space is tight, Undergraduate Housing Manager Angela Hodgeman said. She added, though, that the Housing Department does not typically receive complaints from returning students.

Shetty, however, was not happy with the situation. Neither were her roommates.

“At first we were a little bit sad,” Shetty said, “because we wanted to live together, and we’ve know each other for the past two years, but we had to take it as it was and follow the rules.”

Anmol Gupta ’09, who had planned to live with Shetty, said, “It was irritating to find out that she wouldn’t be able to live with us and that she would just have to go through the room draw process on her own for the second semester.” Gupta added that there were other rooms available in Spelman, and that she couldn’t understand why Shetty wasn’t placed in one of them.

Shetty was given a single in the basement of Henry Hall, and, after receiving room improvement, she finally settled in a single in Scully Hall.

For Sarah Vander Ploeg ’08, the loss of her room was also a disappointment. Vander Ploeg’s spot in her double was left empty when she studied at Oxford in fall 2006. She was unable to take the room, however, because her roommate went abroad for the spring.

“You’re sort of at the mercy of the people who have vacated spots on campus,” Vander Ploeg said.

Even when room assignments do not present a problem, many returning students have complained that the Housing Department only gives study abroad students a few days to get settled before spring courses start.

“[They give] you very little time to move in,” Vander Ploeg said.

Some students who have gone abroad in their fall semesters, though, have had more positive experiences.

Devon Ahearn ’09, who studied at Paris’ Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques in fall 2007, initially drew into a quad with three friends.

“[I was] concerned that [my friends] would be moved into a triple or that some random person would be put into the room,” Ahearn said. The four waited expectantly for an e-mail from the Housing Department confirming their fears, but it never came. Ahearn’s spot in the room remained vacant during the fall, and she moved in with her friends at the start of the spring semester.

“Housing was actually fairly helpful,” she said. “I had an issue with the housing application ... but Housing answered my question very quickly.”

Other students also found the Housing Department to be very understanding of their situations.

Ashley Alexander ’09 said that the Housing Department respected her last-minute request to be placed into a fourth-floor room that had been vacated by another student studying abroad.

“Housing was relatively helpful and accommodating,” she said.