College - Ideal or Real?

I grew up looking at colleges through the television. My mother would sometimes go and study in libraries belonging to various universities. All I knew were images like these. I imagined a tranquil place with a comforting buzz of a newly adult community. A place where sex, cars, drugs and mischief was readily available in comfortable quantities. I imagined a place where young adults, still kids in a way, could live, eat snacks, read books and play video-games together. I imagined a place where everyone was different, unique and interesting. I imagined all of these things to be universal traits of "college."

What bothers me is that the dorms on my campus are actually quite superb. They are nestled into a beautiful area and our campus itself is gorgeous. But alas, more times than not, I feel as if it is a prison. The RAs have a constant, ever-vigilant and policing eye. Rules are strictly enforced - and usually for the sake of saving management money. Everything is all about the dollar. The education here, despite the best efforts of the teacher, is not "student centered" as it claims to be.

Everything grinds on the dollar. This is especially true for student housing. I happen to know a few inside secrets. There are many systems in place to assure the student will pay more than they bargained for. The following is one such system:

1.) Upon checking-in, residents are to make a detailed report about pre-existing damages in their newly assigned rooms. This is supposedly put in place to assure that nobody pays for damages they did not create.

2.) A confusing set of options is presented to the resident upon check-out (at the end of the academic year). They must sign up for a specific day to move out completely and have it verified by the RA. The RA verifies that check-out is complete and the entire living space is cleaned immaculately. If the apartment is not cleaned immaculately heavy charges are levied. If "check-out" is skipped, or badly documented the resident is charged $150.

The worst part about this system is that it MUST be completed on the day of your last final. For those who have finals on the last day of the week, Friday, they must be moved out by 7pm that evening. Parking is strictly enforced to assure there is NO easy access for loading vehicles. Valuables must be schlepped up to a quarter mile with the option of using housings very limited supply of dollies. Imagine having to orchestrate an entire "move" and "deep clean" on the week/day of your finals? Bullshit, isn't it? Student centered campus... fucking liars.

3.) Assessments for "room damages" are done by various different staff members that abide by radically different and/or completely improvised guidelines. One staff member might charge one group of students for excessive pinholes, where another staff member might not. This system is unregulated, inconsistent and potentially biased.

4.) Charges for "damages" are sent out WITHOUT cross-referencing the aforementioned report. For clarification; if your room was damaged by the previous resident, and you correctly recorded this as instructed, you will STILL be charged for the damage. Your report was ignored. If you want your report to be even LOOKED AT, you must file an appeal within a few short days after receiving your letter regarding the charges levied against you.

This system is effective because it assures that anybody lazy, stupid, under-informed, or has had the misfortune of housing misplacing their email/address will be charged unfairly for damages they did not create.

What is so curious about this system is the idea that somebody LAST YEAR, who lived in THAT room was ALSO charged for that same damage. Clearly, the fact that the damage is still there is indicative of the fact that the money charged from the student previous never went towards repair - and practically assures that the flaws and inadequacies of the facilities keep harvesting money from each crop of new residents.

Charge for the repair.
Don't repair it.
Charge for the repair.
Don't repair it.
ad infinitum.

Conclusion: whether this system has arisen out of laziness, bad organization or pure malicious intent is unknown. However, it is one of the many things my college has done to dissuade me from believing in the idealized and televisionesque outlook on young Academic life.