Middle Tennessee State University - Midlander Yearbook (Murfreesboro, TN)

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-!l MOUSE I CASUALTY COUNT Kia£D: numw wounded: I CAPTURED: HOME IS HIS HASSLE You are what you are because you live where you do A first -semester freshman girl of thought, growing more and more by Kathy Naylor A first -semester freshman girl comes in from a date at 2:12 a.m. Her identification card is promptly con- fiscated. Groups of male dormitory residents ignore writing term papers and study- ing for tests. Instead of performing these rather vital tasks, they leave their rooms in a group. A few minutes later, the screams of hysterical young women merge with the amused gig- gles of other girls as the dormitory men, massed outside the women ' s window, scream We want panties! We want panties! Commuters begin to sweat through the energy crisis. As gasoline prices rise, car pools become serious objects of thought, growing more and more popular. As Sunday gasoline sales shrink away, commuting students realize they have a problem. After they arrive at school, they face the ex- asperation of finding a parking space within a mile of their class. Com- muters often miss the enjoyable ac- tivities of campus life that dormitory residents plan and execute because of these problems. In an off-campus rental house that six students share, greasy dishes moulder in the sink unclaimed and ants trail across the bedroom floor to and from the dregs of a Coke bottle three days empty. Students who live in off-campus

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■■H Bv M t1 r piWi v Li ii Ml % H g i Ik. PfeniE PUT a i GRR5AGE IW CSV ?U-,sr .Jw( r. 5ri T,t. ro.. ll.-..fc Put b.t l.vc»-s. - h ' ■■ A STUDENT ' S It is no wonder that the atmosphere surrounding a student and the student ' s attitude toward college life are greatly influenced by where he lives ...

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apartment complexes pay steep de- posit payments in order to receive utilities and other public services. High rents pose yet another problem. In a trailer shared by two students in a Murfreesboro mobile home park, a freshman from Jasper, Tenn., is plagued by the vague fear that he will be arrested someday because his roommate, a senior from Chatta- nooga, leaves bags of marijuana on top of the refrigerator. Married students strive to keep up their grades while managing a house- hold and keeping a job. The high cost of practically everything forces them onto penny-pinching budgets and frugal lives. Men who live in fraternity houses enjoy the convenient parties; how- ever, like dormitory men, privacy is a scarce commodity. The necessi- ties that dormitory students never think twice about, such as adequate heat, plumbing, and electricity, are often deficient. It is no wonder that the atmosphere surrounding a student and the stu- dent ' s attitude toward college life are greatly influenced by where he lives — in a dormitory, campus apart- ment, married students ' housing or off-campus housing of any type. While it has often been said that a man ' s (or woman ' s) home is his cas- tle, the fact remains that no situa- tion is perfect. It follows that resi- dents are never completely perfect, either. Most of the gripes voiced by MTSU students about their housing arrange- ments resolve themselves under two main headings: Lack of privacy and lack of personal freedom. These com- plaints, in varying form, were shared by almost all students, whether they lived on or off campus. i Although making friends with reommates, fraternity brothers, or quadmates is entertaining and fun in the beginning, the newness of living in close soon wears off. Everyone needs a certain amount of privacy, and unfortunately this privacy, is not always available in the dormitory or the off-campus house. The prospect of an intruder walk- ing into one ' s room with no advance notice is a very real one. (Is it a friend? A burglar? A policeman? A woman? A stranger?) The first im- pulse, to kill the invader, is usually checked for fear of messy legal com- plications. However unlikely it seems to these unfortunates at the time, though, most of them will neither be robbed, arrested, raped or killed by these mysterious visitors, and most off-campus and dormitory residents P— PfP