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My dorm building is also secretly awesome

Living in International Village is actually pretty nice.

As I said in this post, International Village is a two-year-old residential hall open to upperclassmen and honors freshmen. It’s a bit isolated from the rest of campus, requiring a short walk across Ruggles Station to reach the rest of campus. Thus, Northeastern apparently designed International Village to be a sort of “campus of its own.” I wouldn’t exactly call it that, but it’s got some nice perks.

I mentioned before that the dorms are nice, but the building itself is too. We’ll start with the basics: International Village, unlike many of the residential halls at Northeastern, has air conditioning.

There’s a miniature gym for students’ convenience.

There’s a gorgeous bamboo courtyard nestled between the IV towers.

International Village is 22 stories high. It’s essential that we have multiple nice, fast elevators.

With 22 stories also comes a nice view. You can actually see Fenway Park from the upper floors of IV, whose bright lights stand out at night:

Those bright lights are Fenway Park, as seen from the 22nd floor of IV.

Boston in daytime. There’s a laundry room on the 22nd floor for kids to do their laundry and enjoy the view.

Every floor has an common area with a flat-screen TV.

Every even-numbered floor has a pool table.

But my favorite part of the whole building? Hands down the dining hall! IV’s dining hall, in my opinion, is the best on campus. It’s a certified three-star green restaurant (whatever that means) but more importantly, it’s unsurprisingly international-themed. The dining hall serves a variety of foods, including daily wood-oven pizza, Indian and Italian food, and my personal favorite…

Though I also dig that there’s sparkling water. I’ve missed it since Germany! However, the hall often runs out of milk, which is unfortunate.

Other features of International Village? A small computer lounge by the dining hall, which is nice. There’s some classrooms, though I have no classes here. IV is also “LEED Gold certified,” meaning it has green features such as “motion-sensor lighting, recycled building materials, low-flow showers and faucets, and a roof garden.”

So I rather like International Village. As my roommate aptly put it, Northeastern is “pampering” we IV kids. But hey, I enjoy it! Keep going NU!

My dorm room is secretly awesome

Before I arrived to Northeastern, I had been trying forever to see what my dorm looked like. I’m living in International Village (IV), a building that’s been open since 2009. Pretty new.

In order to know what to bring to college, I wanted to know what my dorm room looked like. No such thing. Photos are impossible to come by online. When I went on a campus tour of Northeastern, we didn’t visit IV– it had a tour of its own.

Dorm rooms are notorious for being small. I’ve seen some of the dorms at other universities. The dorms are petite. Rather cramped. Storage space is hard to come by. Knowing this, I packed to maximize storage space for my dorm.

IV rendered many of these things useless:

Adjustable bed frame.

Drawers under the bed.

Closet with shelves.

Desk with drawers.

I’m in what’s called a “semi-private double.” Meaning, I’m in a double– I have a roommate– but we don’t have to share a communal bathroom with the whole floor. Instead, we share a toilet and shower with the room adjacent to us. Each room has its own sink. All the rooms in International Village are like this– you won’t find a communal bathroom anywhere here.

Desk with drawers.

So that’s the deal with my dorm! A dorm this nice isn’t the norm– IV only houses upperclassmen and honors freshmen. Visiting freshmen have commented on the cleanliness, size, and modernity of IV. Man, I lucked out again, didn’t I?

And for the incoming honors freshman– here is what the dorm looks like.

The area at the door.

Our microfridge and microwave. These can be rented, for the low, low price of $207.19 a year. In IV, you can bring your own fridge, but not a microwave. Oh, and the TV? Definitely not included in the dorm.

My side of the room!

The shared portion of the bathroom. Bathroom carpets, toilet paper, toilet cleaner, and toilet plunger not included. Also, a shower curtain is provided, but my roommate provided this nicer one.

Hopefully, with this, future freshmen will be less confused! It’s a common problem for freshmen everywhere to not know what your dorm looks like. So…

I’m so excited to live here! More on IV to come!