Living in a triple and quad style dorm room has its pros and cons, and knowing what makes them different can help you decide whether or not it’s worth it to live in one.
Living in a triple or quad dorm room can help you save money, save time and energy on chores, give you a chance of living in a bigger room and socialize more often. On the other hand, you might not have much personal space, you’ll have less privacy and there may be less room for storage.
I provided 5 survival tips at the end of this post to help make living in a triple or quad dorm easier.
Not every triple or quad dorm room will look the same on each campus. Here are a few examples of what you could be greeted with on move-in day:
Triple Dorms:
Quad Dorms:
The Pros of Triple/Quad Style Dorms
1. You’ll Save Money
Living with two or three other people has its benefits. One of them being the opportunity to save money when it comes to buying dorm essentials. One person can take care of buying the vacuum, the other can buy a carpet, you can buy some cleaning supplies, etc. Each of you can split your shopping list among multiple people to make your budget as tight as possible.
2. It’s Great For Extraverts
If you’re the type of person who recharges by interacting with people, then living with more roommates might be the vibe for you. Unless they’re the type that are never home, then you won’t have to worry about feeling lonely all the time. The chances of someone being home with you are higher than if you lived in a double dorm with only one other roommate.
3. You Can Collaborate On Chores
Besides money, you can also save on time and energy if you live with two or three other people. Chores can take a long time to do, which is what living alone quickly teaches you. Thankfully, you have multiple roommates who can help you divide and conquer the work. Some of you might end up getting grouped with students that don’t want to help clean the dorm though. Here are some ways to deal with that predicament.
4. You Can Share Your Essentials
After you’ve saved money by splitting up the college essential shopping, you can each reap the benefits of splitting the price tags by sharing your items. Of course this doesn’t apply to everything you decided to buy. However, if each of you takes turns purchasing a mega box of cereal that you can all share, then you’ll all save money on groceries month to month.
5. The Room Might Be Bigger
Another benefit to living with more than one person is that your school might account for elbow room by giving you a bigger place to stay. If you want a better idea of just how big, then check out my post called “How Big are Most College Dorms? (Ranked By Type)”. Just note that not all triples or quads are going to be larger just because there’s one more person living in it. Some schools just shove a bunk bed or two in a double dorm and call it a triple or a quad.
The Cons of Triple/Quad Style Dorms
1. You Won’t Have As Much Personal Space
Speaking of how big (or small) triple and quad dorms can be, let’s talk about personal space. When living in a double dorm with one other person, it’s easy to split the place in half so that each of you has their own territory. When you share the space with two or three people, you’ll have to be a little more creative than that. Depending on how the dorm is set up, personal space can be tricky to establish in a non-verbal way. However, if none of you really care about having a large amount of elbow room, then this might not be an issue for you.
2. You’ll Have To Compromise With Two Other People
One of the more difficult parts about living with someone else is that you can’t treat the place like it’s entirely your own. You might have different sleeping schedules, communication styles, noise level tolerance, etc. Settling into a rhythm with one other person can be hard enough. Doing the same thing with two or three other people? That can be downright challenging. That’s why this living situation might be better for a more easy-going type of person.
3. There Won’t Be As Much Privacy
Living with two roommates also leaves less space for privacy. You might have to be less shy about a number of things that you’re used to doing alone. Of course when it comes to handling sensitive info, like calls from your doctor, banking info, calls from your parents, etc., you should wait until the dorm is empty. The tricky thing about this, however, is that the room has less of a chance of being barren if two or three other students call it home. You gotta be creative about it.
4. Bad Idea For Introverts
If you’re someone who recharges by spending time alone, like me, then being surrounded by more than one person most of the time might be exhausting for you. Heck, I even found living with one other person to be tiring. If you can relate, then it’d be best for you to avoid this living situation unless you financially can’t afford to.
5. There Might Be Less Storage Space
Finding enough places to fit all of your college essentials can be hard enough when sharing the room with one person. If you end up in a triple or quad dorm that’s the size of a double, then this is going to be even harder to pull off. You’ll have to either bring a lot less stuff, or you’ll have to buy additional storage space.
Survival Tips
1. Establish Rules
One critical rule that’ll help you live in peace among your roommates is being clear about what you do and don’t want life to be like in the dorm. Each of you are going to have to be clear about your deal breakers, how often you should clean, when your bedtimes will be, how often you’ll be having guests over, etc.
If you don’t do this, misunderstanding and a lack of communication can lead to drama real fast. My school got ahead of this by having every student fill out a roommate agreement and turn it into our R.A. It basically forced us to communicate our expectations of each other before the year even started, which helped me get along with the girls I lived with while in college.
2. Be Willing To Compromise
While establishing your rules with one another, you’re probably going to come across issues that you each view differently. This is where compromise comes in so that everyone can live in peace. You each have to be willing to make sacrifices here and there in order for all of you to have a positive college experience. Learning to live with compromise is also a valuable skill to take with you after you graduate, so take the opportunity to get used to it here.
3. Speak Up If Something Bothers You
One thing that I really struggled with during my freshman year was speaking up when I had a problem with my roommate and suitemates. By the way, I lived in a suite-style dorm room so we shared a bathroom with two other girls.
One particular issue I had was that the bathroom floor didn’t look clean until it was my turn to tidy the room up. I held this resentment inside until one day I knocked on my suitemate’s door and asked them if they were cleaning the floor. That’s when I learned that they didn’t even know that it had to be disinfected. Past that point, they put effort into wiping down the floor. I wished that I brought up the issue sooner so that I could be less stressed quicker. To save yourself the mental energy, bring up problems that you have sooner rather than later.
4. Write Down Each Other’s Schedules On A Board
Taking the guessing game out of when you’ll have alone time in the dorm might help you be less stressed. You’ll know exactly when you’ll get sweet sweet alone time, which everyone needs to some degree. Also, if you ever need to get in contact with one of your roommates and they aren’t home, you can check their schedule to see if they’re in class. My roommate and I grabbed some notecards, wrote down our schedules, and put it on a small bulletin board.
5. Let Each Other Know When You Plan To Bring Guests
Last, but not least, if you plan to bring someone over that doesn’t live with you, tell your roommates beforehand. Having guests in your home when you don’t expect it can not only be jarring, but annoying or embarrassing. Give each other enough of a heads up to avoid catching anyone off guard.