Engineering Residential Learning Community (ERLC)

Awesome.

Well, I think folks are slowly starting to join.

I see someone from Minnesota, so that's exciting.

I bet it's cold. I'm cold here and it's like.

I bet it's I bet it's cold too. So Yeah, ooh several folks from Minnesota, so that's fun. We've got Washington State Shout out to California where we've been thinking about you all with your wildfires as we've been experiencing our own here in Colorado, so.

Very exciting, I'm going to give folks another minute or so to join us. I want to welcome everyone for taking time out of their Saturday to join us virtually. I know this is this is a new thing for all of us in the College of engineering. Typically we like to see your shining faces in person, give some high fives and things of that nature. But we know that this is a challenging time, and so we're glad to be with you all. Virtually today I did want to throw out though, that because we're in a virtual world that technology challenges.

May happen we're going to keep our fingers and toes crossed that they don't, but if it does an I lose you or you lose me. Please just rejoin an I will rejoin as soon as possible and I've got some great support here. Today I'm going to let them introduce themselves in just a moment, but I got some backup so I'm not alone and they can take over if my interwebs meltdown. So anyway, just wanted to throw that out there.

Awesome few more people from California so well, great, well I'm going to go ahead and and get the ball rolling. It looks like Katie put a message in there. She's going to help us with questions today. So thanks Katie. Appreciate that and she also put the email address where you can send questions after today to the student ambassador team who are a bunch of awesome engineering students that also not only know a lot about their major but a lot about campus in general so they are great representatives of our college.

I'm Shannon Wagner. I should have introduced myself. I'm the manager for student success initiatives in the Walter Scott Junior College of engineering. It's really just a fancy title that means that I do a lot of things related to student success, so working with peer mentoring, tutoring, all sorts of things. And today I have the great privilege of chatting with you all about the engineering, residential learning community, or Earl C as we call it, 'cause we like to shorten everything into into little bites.

I think I'm back. Sammy give me a thumbs up if I'm back.

I don't know.

OK so Shannon, are you coming OK?

I don't know what just happened there way member. I told you all there might be technical difficulties, so there it is. We got it out of the way. It was the first slide anyway. I want to introduce our panelists today. I've seen at least two of their faces, so hopefully the other folks are here, but I nonya. Would you like to say hello and share a little bit about yourself?

Definitely so. Hi everyone, my name is Ananya. My pronouns, are she her and hers. I'm in my third year studying chemical and biological engineering and as Shannon mentioned earlier, I'm an engineering student abaster.

Hi, my name is.

Outside

Awesome thanks and Anya.

That's OK, go ahead.

sorry, so I'm popping on for some of the other panelists who might be having technical difficulties, but Luckily I'm also studying environmental engineering as Evan is so I can kind of chime in on that experience. But yes, my name is Katie. My pronouns, are she, her and hers, and I'm in my 4th year studying environmental engineering with a minor in International Development. And like all these other Lovely Ladies in my fellows to ambassadors. I also lived in engineering.

Learning community.

And.

Sammy might have disappeared.

Of course, so my name is Sammy. I'm in my 4th and final year at CSU studying civil engineering.

Oh, you can't hear me.

Alright, well we'll give Sammy just a minute to reconnect.

Can you hear me now? OK, caveboy can hear me. I had to hop off and back on 'cause my computer froze. So this is great. I think all of us have had to hop on and off already.

Alright, I'm going to try and move to the next slide and if I see Sammy's face pop back up I will definitely have her introduce yourself and share a little bit.

And for whatever reason, my slides are blank, so.

Oh OK, I'll go ahead and introduce myself. This might take a little bit for Shannon to see if it's lagging, but again, Sammy worth your civil engineer and answer her and hurt. And I lived in the year. Oh my first and second year.

I think you Katie is my best bet to log out real quick and come back in.

Yes, log out, refresh your browsers. We can go ahead and get started if you'd like.

Kay?

OK, so we can kind of go ahead and get started. I'm sure Shannon will chime in and kind of reiterate everything we're going to say, but the engineering residential learning community is primarily in academic village engineering. There's a whole building in academic village dedicated to just engineering students, so we're very lucky.

To be surrounded by her fellow engineers while we are living on campus, our first year, there are so many different academic support services and resources and I'm sure we will dive more into depth on those in a little bit. But hopefully Shannon is able to connect back in and give us more details.

Wonder if she can hear us.

I'm back, Sammy did.

I can hear you Sammy, did you have a chance to introduce?

Alright, so maybe until panel connects we can just talk about what the more residential learning community itself entails, and so as the name states, it is a place where engineering students at CSU can live an learn with other engineers and it doesn't just house our community in academic village engineering. It also takes into account Edwards Hall, which is right across from the engineering residence Hall. So with in Edwards Hall, there's a floor dedicated strictly to engineering students as well, and then in academic quality engineering you definitely live and learn with a lot of Engineers and so.

Oftentimes your neighbors will be people that you have classes with, and so it's a really convenient way to have a support system and build that sense of community as well, which I'm sure Katie and Sammy can talk to as well.

Yeah, I can hop on as well and just review everything that hopefully Shannon will be able to review when she pops back on, but this slide is a little bit of a umbrella overview of everything that academic village has to offer, so of course it is a resident resident. All you do get to live there. The rooms are really nice, you'll get to see them in a few slides so that in itself is awesome and then we'll also talk about the academic support services, which include various different tutoring resources that we have Sunday night through Thursday night. Just downstairs. There's also lab spaces, design studios and those all fall under resources.

Hi Jackie.

But we're going to add.

Hi I yeah, I'm sorry it sounds like we're having a few technical issues. I just wanted to pop on as well and help support you all through this presentation. But y'all are doing amazing. I'm sorry that we had some. I think some Internet issues with Shannon's connection, but yeah, I just wanted let's go ahead and go through some of these academic support resources to get us started. Does that sound good with everyone?

Next up is academic support. So one thing that's really important to mention his engineering is hard and it's really nice to know that you have a whole community of support around you at Colorado State University and one of the best things that you will be able to access is pure mentoring as well as nightly tutoring, and this all happens in the first floor there of the engineering building over an academic village. So Shannon did you get back online, OK?

Maybe can you all hear me?

OK.

Alright.

We can hear you. Yes, definitely understood. We were just going to talk a little bit about our mentorship programs and tutoring.

Perfect, I'm not sure what you've covered already. My apologies. I jinxed myself by talking about the technical difficulties 'cause here we are. So yeah, engineering residential learning community. We're probably one of the more robust learning communities on campus. There are variety that students can choose from. Ours happens to focus on supporting engineering students because we understand that your programs are academically rigorous, and so we provide a lot of additional support to make sure that you are surrounded by folks who understand the.

Is that you're going through and can provide you with assistance in a lot of different ways, so we have some awesome peer mentors who live in the ER else. Currently we have three and we've had up to six or seven in the past, so for those of you who are considering CSU an this community, know that you would have an opportunity in the future to apply for a peer mentor position if that was something you were interested in an our peer mentors do a lot of things. They connect with the residents in the community for programs and events, or providing one on one support.

When students run into transition challenges, maybe they're feeling homesick. Or maybe they run into struggles not knowing how to talk with a professor or faculty member about a challenge there. Having in the class. Or maybe they just want to know where do I go in town to get the best ice cream? And the answer is, walrus just in case you wanted to know. So lots of great ways that the the peer mentor support students. We also provide tutoring within the ER else that currently has switched to all virtual tutoring.

But for any engineering student who is interested in getting help in basic math and science courses, so calculus one all the way through differential equations as well as physics one and two, and Kim one and two. And then we provide on each night. So again Sunday through Thursday there are engineering specific tutoring options as well, so maybe you are a civil engineering student in you need help with your CV 103 class. You could go on a specific night and participate and get support from the civil or environmental tutor so.

It really we really feel like it meets students where wherever they are at we are also the only learning community on campus that has a faculty and residents. So doctor Bonnie Roberts is our current faculty in residence and she is fantastic. She is an associate professor in the mechanical engineering Department and she just loves working with students so she teaches. But she also lives in the community with our students and with the peer mentors and our graduate academic coaches. And so doctor Roberts and.

The graduate academic coaches are also there to support folks and just provide transition assistance and sometimes just a pep talk. Like if you're having a rough go of things or you know you didn't do well on an exam. Sometimes it just helps to hear from someone who's been there and done that and has had some of those experiences. So and the slide also mentions that students in this community have access to resident assistants who are engineering students. We do sprinkle in a few folks who are not.

Engineering and that so that they can support other students who might be assigned to the buildings that were in. So I hope you all are asking questions, so if there's anything I can answer please make sure that you're putting those in the chat and then the other part of this slide lists a lot of our other great resources, so the design studios collaborative work rooms because engineering is a team sport, it's not something where folks are working in isolation, but you're working on interdisciplinary teams.

And so we have a lot of collaborative workspaces and classroom spaces within our community as well. And I believe we're also the only learning community that has our own. IT support helpdesk within the community as well, and that's staffed by our engineering technology services, our engineering network services. Excuse me folks. So awesome. Thanks again, Jackie and others for popping in to help me with that.

I'm going to try and change slides.

Here we go maybe.

I think we're just working with slow interwebs today, friends.

So we already talked a little bit about the academic support, the peer mentoring, and the nightly tutoring. Again, we really feel like the the more that we can do to set our students up for success and provide that support in-house within engineering. The better our students do, and there's actually been research that shows that students who live in the engineering learning community do better academically. They have higher GPA's, they're more connected to resources and more often than not they.

Continue on an engineering and persist in their program so we love that fact and I think a lot of it is just being surrounded by that support from our staff, the peer mentors, the graduate academic coaches, etc.

So Speaking of academic support, again, lots of different folks available to assist our students. We offer weekly drop-in advising within the residence halls so Alice Werkmeister you can see Alice pictured on the left. She is our academic support coordinator. Her main role is to work with engineering open option students, so students who are still trying to figure out their flavor of engineering and what they'd like to pursue.

And she also currently supports engineering science students, which is a program that we've had for several years and is currently on its way out. We are grand find grandfathering that program because it ties in so closely with some of the other majors that we offer an engineering. So Alice does provide again, drop in advising on a weekly basis, so just a chance for any engineering student to pop in and visit with her and ask questions about. You know, I'm, I'm thinking I might need to drop this class. Where do I find information about the drop deadlines or what's the difference between dropping a class and withdraw?

From a class, how do I get involved? Where can I find tutoring support and those sorts of questions so Alice is available for general advising for all engineering students within the community? I mentioned Doctor Roberts. There's a picture of doctor Roberts, and again, she is a associate professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department. She's done some great programs and activities with us and is always looking for ways to get students involved in professional organizations because.

She has many years of professional experience. Before she moved into academia and Ann, she knows first hand the importance of networking and making connections, and so she's always looking to connect students to those different experiences. Last year, as an example, doctor Roberts put together a series of dinner events for our women and engineering floor as part of the ER else, and it was quite the successful program she brought in industry leaders from around the area. Female identified industry leaders to meet with our.

Women in engineering floor and just chat about their experiences and what their careeer trajectory has look like and some of the lessons that they've learned all along the way. As as female identified folks in a male dominated industry. So I mentioned a little bit about the graduate coaches. So similar to the peer mentors who are engineering students. But at the undergrad level, our graduate academic coaches have all completed a bachelors degree in engineering and.

In a variety of fields, and now they're currently pursuing their graduate work, either PhD or Masters in engineering as well. So we currently have three graduate academic coaches and they do a lot to support the community. They reach out to students who are struggling with their pre calculus math courses and do some academic outreach in that way they do a lot of programming next week we are sponsoring an hosting, a virtual club fair to share with our engineering students. All the awesome engineering clubs and organizations.

That we have on campus so they do a lot of those sorts of things again to get students involved and connected and also to get them to the resources that they need to help them be successful.

Alright, we're moving on. Hopefully I'm not talking too fast.

Awesome, so we've had a couple of questions in the chat. Shannon, so does someone want to answer our first question of how close is dining an? Is the food good?

I can for sure answer that question, so I lived in academic village my freshman year, my first year in the Engineering Hall, and then my second year in ASP in. Can you hear me OK, Shannon?

Here is our next piece I did want to talk just a little bit more about the physical resources that we offer. Again, these are not things that that all other learning communities on campus have access to. So we are very fortunate that of our buildings where we how students in the learning community that we have these spaces for folks to work, the Ryan design labs are on the 1st floor of a V Engineering building, but each student in the ER else has access to those spaces.

Currently, because of covid we have a few restrictions, but I'm again hopeful that when the world goes back to normal just a little bit that those will be thriving workspaces again. But a place for students to get together and bounce ideas off of each other to work on projects simultaneously, because, again, a lot of Engineering is team related and working with other folks who maybe are not the same majors you, but coming at a project from different angles so really need to have these spaces where.

Folks can sit down and work together on those multi disciplinary projects. Also we have two classrooms in the learning community as well a traditional classroom, but there's also an electric or electronic excuse me classroom as well for folks to use and you'll find not just engineering classes being offered in those but honors program and other partners. Offer programs and classes in those spaces as well. And then at night when they're not being used for classes, those are great programming.

Spaces for the peer mentors and the resident assistants to engage our students and all sorts of things from, you know, painting and planting succulent pots to movie nights where we watch hidden figures and we discussed the implications of race and gender within the field of engineering. All sorts of things. And then I also mentioned the engineering network services help desk, so that is staffed by students who are engineering students and they work for.

Also Shannon, are you able to hear me?

ENS and again, we're the only learning community that I'm aware of that has our own helpdesk, so kind of a cool thing to have those folks available to us.

Alright, I have done a lot of chatting and I know I had some technical difficulties so if there are any pieces that folks feel like they didn't get filled in all the way for them, I would love to hear everyones questions so.

Any questions?

Awesome, well let Shannon refresh and then we'll dive right back into that question about food in the dining halls. So academic village itself has three residence halls. Engineering is the first one, so for engineering students like ourselves and hopefully you all in the future as well as honors. Which is for people in the University honors program and then ask them, which is typically for overflow. They also have an engineering flaw. Ran a lot of upperclassmen. Also live in ASP in, but the best building in that whole little community is the dining Hall which is called Rams Horn.

And they have two levels. The upper level has a ton of amazing food. They have a Mongolian Grill where your food is made fresh and funny. Get to Add all your own little mixins and they fry it up and it's all nice and warm. There is a text next station so that has any everything that you want for like kind of Qdoba Chipotle style food. And then there's a comfort food station. There's always a salad bar and a fruit bar, and my entire like Dyett freshman and sophomore year was I start with the big salad from the salad bar and then I go to my like.

Meal of choice, whether it be Mongolian Grill or comfort, food station or grab a burger or whatever. And then I always close it off with a big Fat Bowl of fruit, because now that I live off campus, food is expensive and I really miss that. So the food is really good and if you get sick of food in academic village, there are, I think, six other dining halls throughout campus that you are welcome to use as well so you can walk across campus and go to the foundry, which is in the Corbett and Parmelee dining halls. You can go to spoons which has like soups and salads and sandwiches. You can go to.

Jarell, which has a whole another like variety of food, so you have many options and if you kind of stick to the same thing like over and over and over again, it could get a little tiring, but that's more like on you to try new things. Go across campus, walk to different places and you also are able to use meal swipes on grab and go items and snacks and coffee and things like that so I didn't get sick of it too quickly and I lived on campus for two years, so you really get to explore and things are pretty the foods pretty decent so I definitely would.

Recommend checking it out and I wouldn't worry about any like nasty food and dining Hall. It's pretty high quality. I like it.

Awesome, thank you very our next question is, are you currently in or off campus housing and which one do you like more?

Like Sammy and Ananya, we both live. We all live off campus now.

It is required to live on campus in residence halls your first year. Like Sammy said, it does not have to be in the academic village or engineering related residence Hall. As an engineering student. Even if you don't live in academic village, you still have access to all of the tutoring. The computer labs, and everything that happens on that first floor of academic village engineering. So it really just comes down to your preferences of if you want to live with engineers or if you want to live with students in any other major.

So going back to the question, I lived off campus my second year in an apartment and then I moved to a house and then I moved to another apartment. So I've been moving around quite a bit. I love living off campus, however I would not change my experience at all living on campus my first year. That's where I met some of my best friends. I still talk to everyday, my whole still gets together pretty regularly and I had a great experience both on and off campus.

Definitely, I would echo that as well and then moving on to the next question we have. What was your favorite part of living in the engineering residence Hall and was it beneficial for you to be surrounded by classmates for the favorite part of living in the engineering residence Hall? I think in general just the layout of the Hall was something I really enjoyed. Their study rooms on either side on each of the floors and then in the middle there's a lounge room, which is where a lot of people would just come together and just meet up, whether that be to like watch movies or just.

Cook together in the kitchen, downstairs anything like that, and so in terms of community. There was a really strong sense of community that we were able to build. Living in the residence halls, and so that was definitely my favorite part of it. And then ask for whether it was beneficial or not for me to be surrounded by my classmates. It definitely was just because a lot of my peers for my classes were the people I was living with, and so I was able to not just form friendships with them, but at the same time also have these incredible support resources as well that I could just rely on all I had to do was even if it was like really late at night and I needed help, but I knew.

Like one of my friends was awake, I just needed to walk down the hallway like knock on their door and we could work on something together and so it definitely made things very, very convenient.

Yeah, I would say that same thing as well and I think a lot of people may be scared to live in an engineering residential learning community because they have this stereotype of what engineers are and like. Am I going to be able to make friends? Are they going to be super awkward like Are they going to want to have fun or are they going to be studying all the time? I don't know what I want and I think that living in engineering really helped to break the stereotypes of what an A typical engineer is. 'cause all is all of us are different. And like Ananya said, I absolutely appreciated living in the Engineering Hall specifically.

Because my roommate was an engineer, she was like the smartest person that I know and like really, really helped me through some of those classes, I would be at my desk like super confused on account to problem and she would be working on the same thing and she would get one. I would get one and we would communicate and help each other learn which was a huge huge benefit of living in academic village engineering. And now I live with most of my roommates are not engineers, so I think it's a lot more difficult to keep myself accountable and to like have an immediate person to ask for help now that I don't live with engineers.

So I really miss that aspect of it and I would definitely recommend it, especially for your first year building that community in the 1st place like is so important because in my classes as a senior right now I still have the same like core group of girls that were in my Hall that we still like Study together even though I don't live with them anymore. So that initial connection is really really important and then as far as moving off campus or decided to stay on campus your second year is really up to your preference of whether you.

Feel confined living in a small room, or whether it's a financial thing. For you, it's very much up to up to you, but the most important thing of all, I think, is building that strong engineering community and support system right off the bat so that no matter where you go, whether it be staying on campus or moving off, you have somebody that you can reach out to and say, Hey, I need help.

Yeah, I'll just pay you back on when Sammy said Ananya it was so convenient. Being able to knock on your next door neighbors door and ask for help on calculus or physics or chemistry homework is very beneficial to live with engineers. I was also a little concerned about living with all engineers because I thought OK well, what if I don't like it? What if it turns out engineering isn't for me and then I'm stuck there or I want to meet people from other majors and disciplines and not be surrounded by engineers 24/7?

Even though that's my entire life now and I completely love it, my kind of outlet was other clubs on campus of finding non engineering majors. So I joined a lot of intermural sports and a couple other clubs on campus. I got involved through the slice office which is student leadership in.

Engagement or community outreach that we love acronyms here. And so I was able to meet students from other majors through clubs and other activities on campus outside of engineering. So it was really nice when I did need the help. I didn't have to go far to get it.

Excellent question is about how many single rooms are available and is it easy to get one. So there are single rooms in academic village. I'm not sure how common they are and especially with the pandemic that we're in. I'm sure there are a little bit more common right now, but there you can request a single room if you have if that's what you would prefer if you have specific reasoning for it and they are available and active in village, it's definitely not like a majority of the rooms enjoy. The rooms are like you, Anna roommate and.

You and your roommate share your room and a bathroom, but there are options for a single rooms. If you're looking for that, but they might be in high demand depending on the year and the requests that come in. So I would look into it and make sure that that request is known. Like early on, just in case that there's any like limits to it, if that makes sense.

Yes, I would definitely agree with that. The person who lived across for me was actually in a single room and so it definitely is a possibility. But as I mentioned, it's sort of on a first come, first serve basis and so just make sure you get that request in a lot earlier. Alright, so looks like our next question is, do all engineers have to live in an engineering residence? And I think Sammy mentioned that earlier where you really do get the option to live anywhere but a lot of engineering students do typically choose to live within the residential learning community just again.

For that support system and said You're very close to all the resources that you have access to as well.

And then Sammy or Katie do either if you want to answer. Are there student park? Is there student parking and if so for what grades?

Yes, so there is. Parking on campus is relatively expensive an that is for a number of different reasons. One is for Collins is always on the top three cities in the nation for safest biking and bike friendly cities every year. And that's something we're very proud of, and so I think that one of the reasons that parking is so expensive is to promote the biking and transportation system. We have an amazing transportation system.

Bus system in Fort Collins. I take the bus to campus most days that I have to go. I rarely use my car. I didn't have a car my first year. There is a shuttle that goes directly to the airport that picks you up right on campus, and being an obvious state student, that was my biggest concern about not having a car my first year and that was really beneficial to have access to that shuttle that takes you straight to Denver Airport. But Yes, there is parking available if that is something that you're interested in, but.

We just know that we are super heavy on bikes and longboards. Skateboards, scooters, rollerblades, any mode of Transportation you could think of, you'll probably see it on campus.

Yeah, parking kinda sometimes be like.

A little bit more on the expensive side. If you want to have the parking spot right on campus, but it is definitely like something to consider into way, whether or not having a car is really important to your first year. My first year I had my car, but it was on and off campus lot that was like 1/4 of the price, which I thought was a good option an when I needed to go home for the weekend 'cause I'm from just South of Denver, I just took a bus to my parking lot and then drove home from there and that worked really well for me. And anytime I wanted to like go to the grocery store or go off campus. I usually like Katie said bike through, walked or took the bus.

Or you really learn how to be a mooch you, like, Mooch off your friends who have cars, or like when you're an upperclassman. One day, you're going to mooch off of the first year students to flight yourself into the dining Hall. So it's all about collaboration. Even when that collaboration involves mooching off of your friends, so I would definitely recommend that. And people are typically more than happy to have a buddy to go off campus with them.

Next question is a really great question. How much do you use the tutoring services as you are now living off campus for all three of us?

I think for me personally it's definitely decreased a lot more from the first year and the reason why is because my support system has changed and so first year I definitely relied a lot on those tutoring services and my peers as well. And then sorry. And then as I went on throughout the years, I guess specially now being in my 30s I definitely rely on my peers a lot more. A lot of them were my closest friends, and so it's definitely a lot easier for me to just ask them for help. But with that being said, there are a ton of tutoring services so.

TAS which are teaching assistants their graduate students who are actually pursuing the discipline that they're teaching you, and so they offer their own like office hours and the professors half have office hours as well, and so I have definitely shifted my focus and relied a lot more on those. But with that being said, we also do have something on campus called tilt.

And stands for the Institute of learning and teaching, and they also have tutors were actually students that have successfully passed the course when they had taken it, and so they are able to give you tips and tricks on how you can do really well on any exams or tests. Anything like that. And so there are some sessions for till that I still have attended because a lot of classes are still taught there as well, so it really does depend on personal preference, but I'm sure Katie and Sammy can talk a little bit more about that too.

Yeah, I utilized the tutoring in academic village and till mostly my first and second year pretty similar to non. Yeah those larger classes, all of your calculus, chemistry, physics classes, tutoring was definitely the best option for me personally. However, now as we're in smaller classes, I'm definitely relying more on my peers and going to office hours and lying on those TAS alot alot especially this semester with everything online.

More office hours are actually being offered, just 'cause everyone schedules a little bit crazy right now and I've gone to those more times than I can count office hours for both your professor Antier is super helpful and they usually are like really conscientious of when they schedule them, so they'll schedule them like right before the homework is due or before exams and things like that. So there are so many different resources you definitely will not be short on help.

Absolutely, I think I agree definitely with both of those perspectives, and I think that's another benefit to living on campus. And like Shannon mentioned earlier, with statistics about how well students who live on campus do as opposed to students who might live off campus. And I think a lot of that is because the resources are right there and you have like no excuse, you literally go down a couple flights of stairs and then you're at a tutoring session, whereas now when I'm at home and like a mile off campus, the lot easier to justify like.

You know, I might. I'm not going to ask for help, but I think it really helps set you off on the right foot when you have all these resources at your fingertips your first year and then you know later on like how easy it is to ask for help and how important it is. So there's a multitude of resources your first year, and then from there figuring out what works best for you, Anne, knowing like the value of asking for help, is really important.

Let's see next question. Is it possible to get a virtual tour of the halls Katy or an onion you want to answer that?

So I believe, and I might be sorry.

So I believe that at the moment our residents holds do not actually offer any virtual tours. However, in our virtual tourist itself we do have a couple of pictures of how the rooms look specifically within the engineering residence Hall itself. To give you a better idea of how those spaces look and how some of the resources that we mentioned that take place on the 1st floor, like the tutoring in the lab spaces, have those look as well, so that might be helpful. And then other than that, Katie G actually went ahead and also put.

A link to our YouTube channel that has a lot of cool resources that will show you some of the information that we talk about on tours as well. And apart from that I also just put in a link to our housing and dining services websites that will just give you a better idea of what the differences between each hole is and what the rates are and stuff like that as well, which can definitely be very helpful. Katie, do you have anything to add to that?

No, that was perfect. Thank you. I'm so our next question is do all the holes have community bathrooms? So I believe it's Amy who mentioned academic village has a suite style so you and your one roommate share your own bathroom and that gets cleaned. I believe once a week. That might be a little different this semester with all of our covid measures. However, it's very convenient as long as you take out your 5000 empty shampoo bottles of the shower they.

Powerhaus it down once a week for you and it's very nice.

They are really nice. I love that. The other thing that I loved about living in active village was not only do you have your own bathroom but the toilet and shower were separate from the sink so you and your roommate can get ready simultaneously and you don't have to like.

Grab your toothbrush while they're in the shower and like avoid that awkward situation so it is very well designed and it's really it feels like a home walking in you have like a little hallway just to give you a picture since there's not a virtual too or just like put on your little imagination hat and think you open your door. You walk in. There's a little hole on the right. You have your closet has mirror so you can see in their sliding doors. You can check out your outfits before you go out for the night for fun and then on the right there's a sink and a mirror.

And then on the left there's your toilet and shower. It's a pretty spacious bathroom. A lot of people have room for like cubbies and stuff to keep all their toiletries and Whatnot. And then you walk further and the floor is now carpeted. You have desk a night stand and like a file cabinet and then you have your bed at which you can loft at three different levels. Low, medium or high. Alot of people like to do high and put their desk underneath or have like a little like 4 or whatever you want to call it. A lot of people do medium then put like their Dresser and stuff and open up a whole corner. So it's really fun and honestly that was.

The most exciting part about college at first for me, which is probably putting my priorities in the wrong place. But I was very excited to decorate my room. Really cute and just loved picturing myself in my own space. That's a little imaginative overview of what the rooms look like.

Do you find that you do most studying in your room or in other studies faces, and if so, which ones? Oh, great question. Katie and Anya. You can go ahead and answer that and I'm going to find a blog post that I just wrote about that and put that in the chat.

Awesome so I try not to study in my room. My room is my, you know, safe haven. I like to sleep and relax in my room. So definitely that first year I was always in the study room so they in every hallway there is like little study room and then at the end of the hallway that shares with the second hallway 'cause each floor has two wings. There is a larger study room.

So I would just speak in each one, see who's in there. Say Oh, this person in my class, so maybe they are also working on calculus homework and I did all my studying in homework in the either like larger lounge or study rooms. There's constantly people in there at way, too late hours of the night and definitely the library was also super nice. They're on the bottom floor in the basement. It's like very quiet like no talking, so that was sometimes nice.

And then you can also rent out a room on the bottom floor of academic village if you're working on a group project or something like that. And you can do the same thing in our engineering buildings and in the library. So I also spend a lot of time studying in the engineering building. We have Scott Bio Engineering an engineering the Engineering Building is primarily where civil and environmental engineer classes are, so that's where I spend most of my time and we have lots of Design Studios in there where I'm usually at.

For me it looked a little different my first year just because if I wanted to focus, I found that my room was actually a really good place for me to be able to do that, and so I would study on my desk, but also a schema entrant. Those lounge spaces were definitely really helpful. I spent a lot of time studying in there because it's just a nice place where you can collaborate with your peers and study. Apart from that, I actually found that studying at our lory student center was really nice for me because there are quite a few people that are there, but it's just such an open, spacious place.

Oh yeah, it's like you're studying all the time, so you gotta switch it up, you know, but I think there's pros and cons studying at home versus in like public areas. But I think I prefer to study in public spaces 'cause I feel like it keeps me accountable. Learning at home I can just like have my door shut and then get really distracted and just sit on my phone forever. And then I'm like Oh no, I just wasted so much time. Whereas if I'm at a coffee shop and I'm sitting on my phone, I feel like people around me or judging me. And they're like wow, she's not a good student, she's just like wasting all her time.

And I think that really allows me to like zone in and go on like.

I don't know.

My life study you study mode and just going really fast and really be the most productive that I can be. Plus the vibe of a lot of coffee shops in Fort Collins. As you can tell from if you look at the link I sent, I kind of love coffee shops in Fort Collins is a lot of them and I think that really provides like a space where not only is it quiet an it's got Wi-Fi and get your little coffee and you just kind of like make your little space for however many hours you're going to be there. It also just kind of makes you look forward to a little bit, because these places begin to feel like your second home.

And you hit up your friends and you're like, hey, I'm going to like alley cat to study or I'm going to Scott bio engineering to study and you kind of get a whole entourage to come and create this study group together. So it's really fun. I've actually come to kind of enjoy studying. Depending on the topic, of course, but

let's see. Yeah, one question that I think we skipped over a little while ago. Is it possible to live in a residence Hall after your first year, or can you have access to the dining halls after your first year? If you don't live in the residence halls? So I did live in the residence halls my second year and the reason for that was because of my roommate from my first year. It was like my best friend and she really wanted to live on campus. 'cause it was the easiest. With the scholarship that she had and she was also planning on studying abroad the second semester. The nice thing about living in the halls if you want to study abroad is that you can leave.

App semester without having to worry about finding a sub leaser thoughts are really great. Great option and also you don't have to go through the trouble of like moving into an apartment or house and buying all this furniture and then leaving for a whole semester to go abroad. That's one of the reasons I chose to live on campus my second year. It definitely is possible. Like I said Aspen has a lot of upperclassmen students in it and then as far as meal plans.

Can you hear me OK Katie, I'm my computer just.

Like

Glitched a little bit, I assume no.

Can you hear me Katie and Anya? OK cool. So was I saying yes you can. I still had a meal plan my second year because I was living on campus. However, you can also have a meal plan if you're living off campus and there are various options for off campus meal plans and it goes by the number of swipes you have in a whole semester as opposed to an on campus meal plan, which is the number of swipes or meal passes that you get within a week.

And then I can you hear me.

Perfect yeah. Like Sam, you saying access to the dining halls after your first year is definitely a great option. My younger brother who is now.

Here he is an army ROTC, and so they're on campus at 5:00 AM, an if for their training, and so it's really nice for them all to go to the dining Hall after their training and get a Big Breakfast 'cause you know, it's whatever you want to eat. You can eat, and so they definitely get their moneys worth with meal plans after your first year.

We have another great question, not super related to living on campus, but kind of and it's what's your favorite thing to do when you're not doing it school related stuff.

Yeah, so I would say one of my favorite things to do on campus that's not school related is in real sports, so I have since my first year I've done Coed flag football, Coed basketball and that has been really fun. Just way to stay active and meet new people.

I personally love playing Co Ed of those versions because I feel like they get there a little less competitive and it's more fun, whereas if it's.

Um, like I also was on an all female basketball team and they were very serious. Which again, that's fun too. But I enjoy just hanging out and taking it. Not as seriously. So that's been really fun. We want I really want to play is called inner tube water polo. So you're sitting in an inner tube and playing water polo an. It's fantastic because there's like no real skill involved. Everyone's flailing around and it looks so fun.

And I really want to play it.

But that's one of the things that I deal, not school related.

That's really cool. I don't think mine lives up to that expectation at all, but mine is just exploring Fort Collins. I am definitely used to living in much bigger cities and so living in Fort Collins has been a really great experience because I'm able to go to all these different places, especially in downtown, Fort Collins. And it isn't too far away either, and it's very convenient to get there. And so just exploring different parts of it and everything it has to offer. And then also all the great green spaces we have here we have Horsetooth Reservoir pretty close by.

And it's gorgeous. And it's a place where a lot of people go to either like, just have picnics or honestly just make new friends as well and just interact. And apart from that, there's also just a lot of things happening all the time in terms of like hiking or snowboarding and skiing. There's just so many clubs and activities that are always happening, and so that's definitely a really great way to get involved and learn more about the community around you as well.

Absolutely, and all these fun things are really close by too. So kind of going back to the question of like car or no car. There's a lot of great things that you can just buy two or walk to. So when I was first year student I would bike to City Park and set up my hammock and like check out a book from the library and read it for pleasure. Or I would go walking to Old Town and go shopping. There's so many cute shops there and then a lot of us have mentioned outdoorsy things. 'cause of course it's Colorado and we love the outdoors so I gotta Horsetooth Reservoir alot. I just skip rocks like.

I pretend my like the rock is my class if I'm like really frustrated, I just toss it and get all my frustration out. And then I go right back home and get back to studying with a renewed mind. So there's a lot of really fun things to do and they're all very, very close. Probably within 5 to 15 minutes.

Next question, just quickly. The question is laundry question mark? Great question. Yes, there is laundry. When I was a first year student it costs $1.50 for a dryer load and $1.50 for a washer load. But now it's included in your student fees so you just go down there. Which is wild, right? Katie like I could have had so much more money to spend on coffee. Much important. Much more important things. But Yes, there's laundry. You can make your parents happy and tell them that you're actually like washing your clothes and washing your sheets.

And it's pretty easy to do, it's just on the 1st floor that your residence Hall and.

That's a different person study too. It's really warm in there. 'cause of all the dryers and it also smells clean, so that's another like fun place that you can study if you want to be weird, like me.

And they make it so easy for y'all. There is now an app that you can download and it will like set timers for you and it will tell you when your load is almost done so you don't even have to go down there to check to see if your stuff is dry yet. It's so convenient you won't forget about your laundry like I do all the time now.

It's so easy.

Alright, and then we have another question which is how many meals wipes do you get and do you run out quickly so you be actually offer five different meal plans and so you get to pick whichever one you'd like. I was personally on the one that I think was like the one that was three meals a day and so 21 meal plan for the whole week and you find that you actually have quite a few meal swipes left because especially in academic village. In Rams horn, which is the dining Hall itself, we have an express and in the express you're just, you have time to.

Access anything you need and it's almost like a grocery store, and so you find that even if you're not eating at the dining Hall, there's definitely a lot of other ways for you to get food. And then we have another question that is, do you find that you have time and space to pursue hobbies? Katie and Sammy? Would you like to start off answering this?

Yeah, I feel like I do a lot. I'm very busy, but it's a good busy. I mean, this is one of our jobs outside of engineering and we love it and I also do internships. So I'm currently finishing up my internship from the summer. I was asked to stay on through the fall. I'm involved in a couple different clubs on campus and so it really just comes down to time management. That's something I had to learn my first year.

I found out that my brain shuts off after dinner time, so those midnight due dates for homeworks mean nothing to me because if I don't get it done before like 6:00 PM, it's going to be a struggle. So what I found out for myself with time management is I work best in the morning so I would weigh much. Prefer to wake up at 5:00 AM to finish an assignment, then I would to stay up until 10:00 PM. And so because I do that I feel like I have a lot more free time in the evenings to do whatever I want.

Are those hobbies and things like that?

Because I like got up early and I finished everything so all my friends are still finishing their homework in the evenings. I'm already done and freed up my schedule to do whatever I want. However, they usually sleep in later than me, so it really just comes down to a preference. And knowing when you work best and how to best utilize your time because it is really important to have other hobbies and things outside of engineering to keep yourself saying.

Absolutely, I would totally agree with that and I would also just say to like hang on to things that really mean a lot to you an not just like being involved in stuff for the sake of being involved in stuff and making sure that the things that you do you truly do love so it doesn't feel like you're like you have a busy schedule like going every single day nonstop, and I think that if you are just like selective of what you're involved in, and realize that you can't do everything that will allow you that marginal time to do the things that like help you to rest, which is.

Very important last question I think will probably end on this unless there's any more burning questions. Throw in the chat, but this one is very much related to residence halls and living on campus an. It's what is ram cache and how does it work? Uh, non arcade you want to hop in or would you like me to explain?

Alright, so round cash is actually essentially like cash system, but it's loaded onto your student account essentially, and so the great thing about it is you actually get. I believe it's $200 of Ram, Cache, K or Sammy could correct me.

Alright, I think Sam he's going to type that in the chat here so you do get $150 of ground cash put into your account. And the great thing about that is you can either use it in the dining Hall so if you ever do find yourself running out of meal swipes, you can always use ram cache to buy some food. You can use it in the Lory Student Center. We actually have a lot of food places in the Lory Student Center as well, so you can use it there. All you can even use it for class materials, so there's definitely a lot of communal ways to use it and it definitely makes it a lot easier.

To know that you at least have another source to rely on, let's see if you run out of food at any point as well.

X.

Alright, so I don't see any other questions here, so I think we're good to Lagaf, but definitely if any of you have find that you have any questions, you can definitely send us emails at our.

Alright, so it looks like we have a quick question. Are the dorms warm? So I believe we do have heating in all of our residence halls and in the engineering residents all in specific. You also do have air conditioning so definitely comes down to like what preference you're looking for, but heating is definitely there because it definitely gets very very cold in Colorado and especially in Fort Collins, so that's definitely an option. But what that I think we're going to go ahead and log off, but definitely if you do happen to have any questions, I believe Kate put our.

Email address in there. So if you have any questions, be sure to email them to us on there and other than that, thank you for joining us in this session and we look forward to seeing you in the next ones.

Right by everyone.