One of the most nerve racking things about college for freshmen can be sharing a communal bathroom. I used community showers when I was in summer camp on college campuses, but not long term. My friend, however, spent her whole freshman year using a hall-style bathroom and has gotten to know the do’s and don’ts of surviving this lifestyle. It’s actually not as hard as you may think.
When using a college dorm shower, keep your toiletries in a caddy, find out when the bathroom is busy, be courteous to your hallmates and clean up a little after you’re done. don’t shower barefoot, hog the shower or the sink, open a curtain without checking or forget your stuff in the bathroom.
Communal bathrooms come with more amenities than normal public restrooms. It helps to know how they differ and the supplies you should bring when getting ready to use one.
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What To Expect In A Dorm Shower
Not every communal dorm bathroom is built the same way, so the features that each of them have are going to vary from school to school (and hall to hall). You can at least count on all of them to have showers, sinks and toilets. Some showers come with curtains while others use doors; additionally, the number that each bathroom comes with varies. When I went to camp at Princeton, the restroom I used only had one shower. Yes, one.
Other than that, the bathrooms at your school may or may not have changing stations, a plunger, toilet brush, or maintenance instructions in case of simple problems, hair drying stations, body weight scales, and feminine hygiene products. Before choosing which dorm hall to live in, see if you can find out what their bathrooms look like from their website or in real life.
What You Should Do in a College Communal Bathroom
1. Keep Your Toiletries In A Caddy
You can only carry so many toiletries in your hands at once while walking to the showers. You also don’t want to bother making multiple trips back and forth from your dorm. It’s better, and easier, to put everything you’ll need to wash up in a handy dandy shower caddy. This might also keep you from forgetting some of your products in the bathroom after you’re done.
If you get a waterproof one, then you can take it inside the shower with you, which is way more convenient. Just remember to let it dry before putting it in your dorm closet or somewhere without ventilation. In my experience, caddy’s also come in handy outside of the college setting too. I use mine when I go on vacation and It makes packing up at the end of the trip way easier.
2. Find Out When The Bathroom Is Busy
Knowing when the bathroom is calm versus hectic is crucial information. You don’t want to leave it up to chance because it’ll impact your schedule. Knowing how long you’ll be standing in line before going to class will help shape your morning routine. If you’re more of a night shower person (like me), then it’ll impact your bedtime.
During your first couple weeks at school, this is the experimental period where you try queuing up for the showers at different times to get a feel for when rush hour is. In general, the restrooms are the most occupied from 7am – 9am and 9pm – 11pm. If it’s possible for you to forgo a morning or night shower and opt for an afternoon one instead, then you’ll probably have a much more peaceful time.
3. Do Whatever You Can In Your Dorm Room
Even though you’re probably used to moisturizing, doing your hair, doing your makeup, etc. in the bathroom mirror at home, it’s a bit different in college. If you have a mirror in your dorm room, it’s better to use that one to do anything that doesn’t require a sink. If your room does have running water, then you only really need to use the hall bathroom to shower.
One reason for this is because it’ll open up the shared space for others to use it. Another reason is because you’ll have more privacy in your dorm to take care of your personal hygiene (if you have a sink). On top of that, isn’t it better to deal with sharing a room with one or two people rather than eight?
4. Be Courteous To Your Hallmates
The thing about using a community shower is that you can’t treat it like it’s your own personal bathroom. There are likely at least ten other students that need to use it on a daily basis, multiple times a day. This means you’ll all have to work together to keep it a decent place to wash up. One way to do this is by refraining from blasting music while you’re scrubbing away. Not all of you have the same taste in music and a quiet shower might be exactly what someone else needs after a stressful day of classes.
Another courteous thing to do is wait your turn before hopping in the shower, or in the bathroom if the line is long enough. Probably don’t need to elaborate on that. The next way to be courteous is by refraining from taking someone else’s things if they accidentally leave them in the shower or on the bathroom sink.
Tell your R.A if you spot someone’s lost belongings so that they can be returned to their rightful owner. Lastly, but definitely not leastly, please be hygienic. Flush the toilet when you’re done, don’t leave huge clumps of hair on the shower floor, don’t leave tissue paper on the floor, etc.
5. Clean Up A Little After You’re Done
This is another way to be courteous to your hallmates, but it’ll also make life a little easier on the cleaning staff. It’s also a good habit to pick up for when you’re living on your own. If you leave a bunch of toothpaste stains, spilled product, water puddles, etc. around the sink basin, wipe it up really quick before you leave. Walking up to a dirty sink top is not something you want to do first thing in the morning or even before bed. Be nice to the person that’s going to use it after you by spending an extra 30 seconds cleaning up any mess that you made.
What You Shouldn’t Do in a College Communal Bathroom
1. Don’t Shower Barefoot
I’m sure you wouldn’t walk into a public restroom barefoot. Even though college residence hall bathrooms are cleaned more often than normal public restrooms, it’d still be gross. At least ten other students probably share the same few showers on a daily basis. You’re all washing off the germs you collected throughout the day, so the thought of stepping barefoot into one is disgusting. Get a comfy pair of shower shoes so that your whole body stays clean. Just remember to store them somewhere dry and ventilated in your dorm room. Unless you dry them with a paper towel, they’ll still be wet by the time you put them in your room. You don’t want the wet/damp environment to promote mold growth.
2. Don’t Hog The Shower Or The Sink
Remember that the ‘community’ in community shower means that you’ll have to share it with quite a few other people. Yes, this is a very annoying part of dorm life, but it is what it is, sis.
If you normally like to take 30 minute or even hour long showers, you’ll have to find a time of day where the bathrooms are basically empty. When that’s not possible, you’ll need to keep your restroom time short and sweet so that the next person can take care of their personal hygiene too. Everyone has a class to make it to and homework to do so when students start disregarding other people’s time, it becomes an unpleasant dorm hall to live in. Help make it a better place by being conscious of how long you spend in the bathroom.
3. Don’t Forget Your Stuff In The Shower
This is especially easy to do if you don’t use a shower caddy. Keeping track of all of your toiletries individually can be tedious, especially if your brain is basically mush at the end of a long day.
If you do end up leaving some things in the bathroom, go back and check to see if it’s still there. Talk to your R.A if it’s nowhere to be found; someone might have given it to her to return to you. If your stuff ends up getting stolen, then I’m really sorry dude. Dorm life can be frustrating sometimes. Try to avoid this situation altogether by using some kind of container to keep all of your toiletries in and putting them directly back in the caddy when you’re done using them.
4. Don’t Open A Curtain Without Checking
When you use community style showers, you have to treat it like a public restroom; check that there’s no one on the other side before entering. If a curtain is closed, then don’t assume that it’s empty and rip it open like a present on Christmas morning. That could result in an embarrassing memory that someone carries with them way past graduation. To save your hallmate from the trauma and therapy invoices, please check to see if it’s empty first.
You could do this by walking in front of the curtain and asking out loud if anyone is inside. You could also tap the curtain if there’s no verbal answer. After trying both of those things, you could very slowly start to open the curtain while still asking, out loud, if anyone is inside. If no one responds to all three of these warnings, then it’s safe to say that it’s empty. If it’s not, well…at least you tried to warn them.
5. Don’t Bring Your Phone Without A Waterproof Case
I’m not going to act like some of you won’t bring your phone in the shower with you. I get it, I’m Gen Z, I have a phone addiction too. Let’s acknowledge real quick that it’s a problem, but let’s not pretend that some of you aren’t going to scroll while you scrub regardless.
If you plan on doing so, make sure you have a waterproof case on that expensive sheet of metal. The price of phones are starting to rival the price of rent (if you have a roommate) and you wouldn’t want all that money flushed down the drain (pun intended). Seriously though, I’ve had my phone suddenly shut off out of nowhere and those are pictures, memories, notes, homework assignments, etc. that I never got back. Granted it wasn’t because of water damage, I dropped it while getting out of a car. Don’t let your phone meet the same sudden fate at the hands of a shower head.
Shower Supplies You’ll Need
1. Shower Shoes
As I mentioned earlier in this post, showering barefoot is something you don’t want to do in a community bathroom. Some shoes will protect your feet from the gross floor. You don’t necessarily have to buy specially made ones if you already own a pair of flip flops. If you have other water shoes, like crocs, then you can sport those too. For those of you that don’t own either, or want separate, shower footwear, then you have a few, specially made options to choose from. One of them being the kind that looks like flip flops, but come with holes in the bottom of them to help them dry faster.
The next kind are built like slides but come with holes in the top and bottom of the shoe for easy drainage and drying.
A third kind of shower shoe is basically an aquatic slide that doesn’t come with any holes in them, but they’ll still keep your feet protected from the gross floor and are built to handle water.
2. Shower Caddy
If you’re thinking of holding all of your toiletries or shower supplies in one container, then it should be a caddy. These babies were basically designed especially for college students that use communal bathrooms. You can keep your things organized and separated, so that your toothbrush doesn’t have to rub up against your loofah.
They also make it quick and easy to transport your hygiene products back and forth from your dorm to the bathroom. These things are also durable, so you’ll be able to use it long after graduation. As I’ve already mentioned, they’re great for hotel rooms. For the record, I also used one before i even got to college since I used to go to summer camp every year. If you have a little sister, cousin, etc. that could use one, buy another for her too!
3. A Towel Wrap Or Robe
These are what you’ll need to stay decent in between showering and getting dressed. After all, you don’t want to step out into the bathroom without looking decent. I suggest these two things specifically because they make hands-free coverage easier than a standard towel would. This’ll make it easier to dry your hair, wash your face, brush your teeth and anything else that you need to do.
4. A Shower Cap
You’ll only need this if you don’t want any water touching your hair unless you plan on washing it. As someone who doesn’t want to deal with wet hair unless she has to, I bring multiple caps. This is because after using one for a while, they start to loosen their grip on your head and let water in more easily.
If you’re not a fan of dealing with unnecessary wet hair in between washes, then I suggest getting some cheap ones at CVS or the dollar store. For those of you that only want to keep your hair dry once in a while, like after curling it for an event, one cap should be able to withstand the test of time.
5. Common Toiletries
These are the things that you use to make your teeth pearly white, hair shiny and smelling nice, skin soft and moisturized, stuff like that. Everything that you’d normally find in a toiletry bag. To get a little more specific, here are a few things you can store in there:
- Tooth paste, tooth brush, floss, teeth whitening strips, mouth wash
- Shampoo, conditioner, hair oil, brush, comb, hair bands
- Lotion, skin oil, skin creams
- Body exfoliant, body wash
- Face wash, face lotion, face creams
