Once upon a time, a long time ago, I had to make my decision for picking where to live in residence in my first year. Although the process
There is the aesthetic component to residence. The oldest two buildings (Wallingford and Edwards) and the newest two buildings (Mary E. Keyes and Les Prince) look the nicest from the outside. This provides useful when sending pictures to all the people back home (grandparents love that kind of stuff...). Your family and friends would be impressed because of how pretty your new home looks. However, not all buildings are so lucky.
Unfortunately, engineers and architects from 1950 until 1980 built some pretty butt-ugly buildings at McMaster. These are the kind of buildings you look at and hope that you’re not stuck living in. When I found out what building I was living in, I was disappointed because it wasn’t the nicest thing to look at.
Somewhat related to this are the other aesthetic components of the building such as the flooring, the tile, and how the room and bathrooms are laid out. Wallingford and Edwards are really nice in this respect because they have hardwood flooring. Most of the other buildings have carpet throughout for some reason I don’t fully understand. Does anyone else think carpeting would be an awful lot more difficult to keep clean? It just makes no sense to me.
Something else to consider is that students have been living in these residences from anywhere between two and nearly eighty years. So they’ve gone through a little bit of wear and tear, especially when those who lived in it were all of age when starting university. Some of the older residences are actually outfitted with bars in their basements. Being allowed to have keg parties probably didn’t help too much either (kegs are no longer allowed in residence, if you’re curious).
For some people, living in residence can be a little bit of a financial challenge. Luckily, Housing and Conference services outlines how much each of the different kinds of residence rooms cost. The cheapest style of room is a triple bunk and loft, which costs $3805. The most expensive is a suite in Mary E. Keyes, which is $6110. This is not the entire cost, as you must also purchase a meal plan if you live in residence, and long distance calls are extra too. You can find more details about residence and meal plan costs in this chart.
If you’re registered in a program in Engineering, Business, Health Science or Psychology, all of your classes are going to be in those respective buildings, right? Wrong!! Because first year classes are so large, you can literally be anywhere on campus. The trend actually continues in all of your years at McMaster, even for some of your smaller classes. In four years, I have had at least one class in every building on campus except the Alvin A. Lee building (where the McMaster Museum of Art is), and the MoMac Nursing building is. So don’t think that living in West Quad (Matthews, Moulton, Wallingford, Mary E. Keyes, Bates) means you’ll be able to get to your 8:30 Engineering 1P03 lecture quicker, as your class could very well be situated in the Arts Quad (Kenneth Taylor Hall [KTH], Chester New Hall [CNH] or Togo Salmon Hall [TSH]) and not in the John Hopkins Engineering building (JHE).
On the note of convenience, some residence buildings are quite the hike from some of the lecture halls. The Information Technology Building (ITB) is at the very edge of campus on the Main Street side. If you live in Les Prince or Hedden, you will have at least a fifteen minute, if not twenty, minute walk to get from residence to your class. Don’t forget you will be making these treks in the wintertime and the rain, when it’s not too pleasant. Similarly, if you are in one of the MaMoWA buildings (Matthews, Moulton, Wallingford), you have to walk all the way over to Commons in North Quad (Brandon, Les Prince, Edwards, McKay, Hedden, Whidden, Woodstock) in order to get something other than a pita or a burger on the weekends.
Lastly, there is the social aspect. If you live in an apartment or suite style residence it is a lot harder to meet other students. You will be able to get to meet your apartment-mates, and hopefully get to know them well. But because there are not common rooms on each floor, it is hard to find, let alone interact with, other people on your floor. However, you will have the privacy of your own bedroom no matter what room you get in either of these buildings (with the exception of the two person apartments in Bates, where two people share a bedroom).
In contrast, if you live in a traditional style residence, meeting people is incredibly easy, because all you need to do is go into a common room to find people. No matter what time of day or night, there will be people in those rooms. The downside to traditional residences is that most first year students have one, two (or sometimes even three) roommates, which limits your personal space and at times can be difficult. Additionally, the fact that there are always people awake and doing something can ultimately end up distracting you from your studies.
I already mentioned that I lived in a butt-ugly residence in first year. Although I was initially disappointed, by half-way through my first day at Mac all of that disappeared. I had an amazing first year. I met tons of people, and got involved in all kinds of activities in residence. I even got involved in residence activities for my previous home the following year when I was a Residence Welcome Week Rep for it. Tradition in this residence is very, very strong, and you will see this residence’s symbol on faculty and Maroons reps as well as Res Reps who don’t end up repping there. Pride is very strong in Whidden...so if you want a residence with a lot of tradition I really suggest you rank it high on your application.
Whidden Whidden Whidden! Bash bash bash!
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