The Village Review

The patio area at the new suites are very nice. They provide a comfortable and cozy area to study, chat or a nice place to smoke a cigar. However, due to OSU’s policy about smoking within 25 feet of a door to a building, it is illegal to smoke on the porch. With this aside, the porches and balconies as they are called on upper floors, are very nice and can be a relaxing place to sit and enjoy the few days of good weather. For every positive there is always a negative and in this case the negative is that the door leading from the lounge to the patio area utilizes the same locks as other doors in the building; however, no one’s key works in this lock. This poses a problem for people relaxing on the patio if there is no one in the lounge to let them come in. Regardless, the patios at the Villages provide a unique feel and allow residents another way of enjoying time off from their studies or at least a change of environment for their studies.

The Villages are continuing the trend on the campus at OSU. The trend is promoting recreation among each halls residents. The Villages encourage residents to get outside and relieve stress the way they did when they were kids; by going outside and running around playing games that students enjoy playing. A favorite for those warm weather days is volleyball. The sand volleyball court that has been set up outside Village F has attracted many students to act on their fantasies of being Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer in Top Gun by playing shirtless volleyball for hours. Regardless of how ridiculous the students look, they all seem to have fun and it seems to be a safer alternative to other collegiate pastimes. The basketball courts around the Villages have also been very popular for students. These amenities are great to have because these are not to be used only by residents of the Villages but other residence halls as well. Good work OSU and JPI. You get the Bryan seal of approval for the great use of space around the Villages.

In the new suites with all of their amenities, it is a shame that the issues with parking have not been resolved.  Just like last year in Wentz, finding a parking spot turns to a crapshoot with snake eyes coming up more often than not.  The main problem I have with the parking lots surrounding the Villages are similar to any parking lot on campus, there are just too many cars and not enough spaces near the buildings.  The great part about living in Village E, located on the northeast corner of the Village complex, is that if there are no parking spots available in the lots near the building, there is an overflow parking lot behind Iba hall.  There are usually decent spaces available for those unfortunate souls that have been left out of their halls parking lots.  The solution…  Well, your guess is as good as mine.  Parking garage?  More lots?  There are lots to the West of the Village Complex that go unused for the most part.  As it stands, the only place for more parking would require the university to destroy the sparse areas of land students use for recreation.  I am all for walking, except when I’m unloading groceries.  Luckily there are the convenient 30-minute loading areas between the Villages.  This solves most of the problems I have with the parking lots at OSU.

Located just inside the courtyard of the Villages is one of the coolest things about the Village complex, at least in my opinion. The courtyards contain one putting green complete with four different holes with varying reads for each hole. The greens are made of the same type of material located at some football fields but just a shorter length than the grassy-turf most see on the field. The artificial grass stays green year-round requires little to no maintenance. I really enjoy going outside in the nice weather and smoking a nice cigar and putting a few golf balls around after a long day of school.

The lounges inside the new Villages are very nice. There is one lounge located on each end of the U shaped hallway. Each lounge is equipped with several chairs, loveseats and ottomans; all of which are color coordinated to match the paint. Along with the comfort amenities also come the best part about living in the Villages, the television. It is not just any television; it is a 52″ high-definition television complete with its own TV Guide system and program notification. After enjoying the quality picture for nearly three months, we learned that OSU had in fact put up the money to get high-definition cable on these TVs. By changing the channel to the 100-01 through 102-04 one can see the available channels in HD. In addition to these HD channels, the Villages also receive about 40 channels of music. With these two additions to an already wonderful entertainment package, it is difficult to stay studying for those pesky classes. Especially on Saturdays and Sundays when you can watch golf in HD. Golf is by far my favorite thing to watch in HD.

The downside to the HD in the lounges is that I haven’t found anyone that has received HD channels in their personal rooms. However, I only know two people that have HD televisions and neither of them have the correct hardware to view HD channels. But with the 52″ widescreen in the lounge, one cannot get too picky about certain amenities.

Upon arriving at the new Villages in August, many residents found that the keys provided to them to unlock the doors at three entrances to the building, their respective rooms and the laundry room closest to their rooms weren’t exactly working properly. The residents of the East side of Village E had keys that only worked on the West side laundry room and visa versa. I admit a minute problem but still a problem.

The keys are very troublesome if lost as well. Each resident is expected to pay around $120 if his or her key is ever lost or stolen. This covers the cost to change the locks at all entrances to the floor as well as the laundry and room locks. This seems a bit steep to me, but I guess that is the price one pays for living in the luxury that is the Villages.

The newest additions to the Oklahoma State Residential Life are equipped with state of the art, top of the line equipment for their residents. This holds true for the laundry rooms at the Villages. The laundry rooms contain two high efficiency washers as well as two large capacity dryers. Both of which are free to residents of the Villages. This is a welcome change for me after changing out around $100 in quarters last year living in the more traditional halls. The newest washers on campus were wonderful for the first few months until maintence fell back for a while. The dryer hose fell off causing all the moist hot air to be forced out into the small room. The room turned into a sauna very quickly. This was not the only problem with the new laundry area on my floor. Someone thought it would be a great idea to steal the fabric softener and bleach trays out of the new washers and not put them back. This limits the use of the high efficiency washers.

The location of the new village buildings is on the same site as old Wilham hall, which is across Farm Road from the Colvin Center.  This is the prime location for students such as myself who likes to work out and need few excuses to not go workout.  The Villages are a really great place to live for students who like to partake in intramural sports.  The intramural sport fields are conveniently located about a block away.

As I asked around my floor for what people thought of the Villages upon arriving in August, one of the residents described her first visit to the new domiciles as really cool. “At least when I first saw the building from the outside, I thought this year was going to be great.” Stephanie said. “Once I got inside, I was really disappointed.” It seems that what made her year was knowing her friends would be around her all year. Of course, many strangers surrounded them all. Like many new residents in a living area, she quickly made acquaintances, which slowly turned to friendships.

Now, she really enjoys living in the new suites.  She wants to stay on campus next semester because of the nice environment but doubts she will be living in the Villages for a second school year.

First impressions can be had with things other than inanimate objects. I had very strong first impressions about the people living on the same floor as me. I knew my roommate and my neighbor that was it. There were 16 people that I had never met before in my life. But being the outgoing person I am, and living in such a cramped room, I was forced to watch TV and play video games in the lounge. This allowed me to meet new people. Before really getting to know the other inhabitants of Village E, I developed some interesting ideas about them. I thought I knew many of them by watching their reactions to my friends and me as we played some intense games of NCAA Football ‘06. After developing these opinions of the people, I got to know them better and found that my opinions were far from the truth. People I thought were going to be uptight were very laid back and relaxed.

Just like the Villages, my first impressions were not right at all with the new is always better; I was incorrect with my thoughts on the people on my floor. As the year goes on, I have realized that the people on this floor are just as interesting and special every other one of my friends. And being away from them makes me realize how much they mean to me. Crazy things happen when you just open your mind and allow people into your life.

Tune in next time to see what I have come to realize about the wonderful world of the new Villages.