In the world of dorm living, the triple is the lowest of the low. Regardless of how small your room is, how obnoxiously loud your neighbors are, how close your window is to the nearest fire station, highway, or dumpster, at least you aren’t in a triple. At Wesleyan, the honor of being in a triple is reserved for freshmen, and unlucky freshmen at that.
According to Melissa Powers, the assistant director of ResLife, 72 incoming freshmen were assigned into triples, for a total of 24 triple rooms. The triples are only supposed to exist for a limited duration of time, and the de-tripling process for this year has already begun.
“Last year, all of the students were de-tripled by the beginning of the spring semester,” Powers said. “De-tripling is done as space opens in first-year appropriate housing. We began de-tripling even before students arrived on campus, as space became available.”
Powers also noted that ResLife doesn’t typically offer students the option of remaining in their triple, if they wish.
“We assume all students want to be de-tripled,” Powers said. “They may volunteer to be the person moved. If no one volunteers, the person assigned to the third bed space is moved. In regards to where students are moved, there is limited choice since it depends on where spaces open.”
Of the students interviewed for this article, the great majority said they found living in a triple stressful, regardless of whether they liked their roommates.
“It doesn’t matter who it’s with, it’s just too many people living in one room for an extended period of time,” Will Krieger ’11 said.
Since there is no standard triple room, sizes vary—lack of physical space is a huge issue, according to Krieger. “I feel like I just have one desk and one bunk-bed to myself,” he said.
Despite these disadvantages, some students seem to be enjoying their triples to the point where their de-tripling was surprisingly difficult.
“Living in a triple was a great way to make friends,” Drew Ritter ’11 said. “Moving out was tough.”
Ritter’s ex-roommate, Christian Hoyos ’11, agreed. “I was more happy being in a triple as opposed to being in a single, because we got along so well and met so many people,” Hoyos said.
In fact, roommates often provide a stable friendship for many freshmen, especially during the first few weeks of school.
“The three of us get along really well. It’s a better number than two because it offers more options,” Samantha Pearlman ’11 said. “We can all go off on our own, or we can all stick together. The triple option has the possibility of being a disaster, but we all lucked out because we like each other. Her roommate, Sarah Ashkin ’11, agreed that in this case, thanks to her roommates’ compatible personalities, three’s company, not a crowd.
”My roommates are great people, and our room is a hub of activity of people and music and art projects. So, you know, that’s really nice and I really do like that aspect,“ Ashkin said. ”I wouldn’t want to move out into a situation that’s less livable. So I’m sticking it out.“
Although Ashkin admitted that a triple could definitely be described as spatially challenged, she insisted that she was content with the way things turned out.
”It’s annoying,“ she said. ‘But it’s my freshmen year and I don’t expect a huge room with a big bed and a walk-in closet and a bathtub and man slaves.”
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