Sundial Housing Guide

Daily SunDial

HOUSING GUIDE2014california state university, northridge

Photos by ArAceli cAstillo / daily sundial

featuringMErIDIaN PlacE aPartMENtSsee Page 5

2 | 2014 Daily Sundial Housing Guide

Student Housing

MEAL PLAN PROGRAM

SUCCESS LIVES HERE

MEAL PLAN OFFICEContact Information:Phone: (818) 677-2655Email: [email protected]: www.csun.edu/tuc/residential.htm

To learn more, call or e-mail theStudent Housing Office:Phone: (818) 677-2160E-mail: [email protected]

To apply online, please visit:http://housing.csun.edu

facebook.com/CSUNStudentHousing

twitter.com/CSUN_SH

youtube.com/CSUNStudentHousing

Sign up for a Meal Plan using the Student Housing application.Meal Plans are required when living in units without kitchens.

Academic AssitanceConvenienceSafetyStaff SupportFriends and FunPrograms and Activites

Events & Special MealsHealthy dining Fun and relaxing atmosphere Walk ins welcome!

Stephen Ceasarmcclatchy-tribune

Soon after she settled into her new dorm room at CSUN, Brit-tany Brockman figured she should give her new roommate fair warn-ing: She’s a bit of a neat freak.

Her roommate, Leslie Rosales, 18, didn’t make much of the admis-sion. But she didn’t know yet just how serious Brockman was.

Brockman, 18, folds all of her clothes impeccably and organizes them by color. She doesn’t like a dirty shower. And when the trash needs to be taken out, it needs to be taken out now.

Inside a freshly decorated (mostly pink) room, her quirks began to show. And in thousands of other dorm rooms around the country last week and in coming weeks, a similar scene plays out.

A teary-eyed parent, a final hug

and then two or three or four strang-ers alone in a shoebox-size room.

The collision of quirks and emotions can cause strife and spark fast friendships — or make fast enemies. And as the first-week jitters blur into a stream of all-nighters, school stress compounds annoying habits and roommates must continue to coexist.

“I’m a very clean and orga-nized person; I like things where they belong,” Brockman said. “I guess I just have to learn to have more patience for messy stuff.”

Colleges around the country have been giving incoming stu-dents more freedom to find their own roommates. At California State University, Northridge, stu-dents can opt for the time-honored rite of rooming with a complete stranger or seek out like-mind-ed freshmen by taking a survey offered by the university’s cam-

pus housing department. The sur-vey covers sleeping, drinking and cleaning habits, among others.

Abby Souza, 18, of Davis, Calif., was given the names of other incom-ing freshmen whose survey answers aligned closely with hers. Armed with those names, she commenced her Internet sleuthing — a common way to gain a peek into someone’s life without actually meeting.

She quickly found a blog page belonging to her future roommate. “I went through all her photos, read her posts — you know, to see what she’s like,” Abby said.

They soon connected on social media, traded phone numbers and texted and chatted with each other weeks before moving to campus.

“We talked about our lives, boys, friends, TV shows,” she said. “We already knew each other before we got here.”

Students who have a light

Internet footprint can be left out of pre-college bonding, said Caro-lina Salguero, 18, of Los Angeles, who bonded online with two of her three roommates before arriv-ing at school. The third roommate had missed out.

“I couldn’t find her anywhere — and she showed up and we didn’t know her,” she said. “We had to start over.”

Jay Chaskes, a retired profes-sor of sociology and social psy-chology at Rowan University in New Jersey, said the urgency to forge bonds is common.

His work focusing on the expe-rience of first-year college stu-dents found that in their first year, students typically hoped to “make friends, become more indepen-dent and get good grades — in that order,” he said.

New roommates must learn how to co-exist day-to-day

see roommAtes, page 4

2014 Daily Sundial Housing Guide | 3

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When asked what they were most anxious about, students typically replied with the same answers and in the same order, Chaskes said. It is natural for them to hope for a bond with whomever they share a living space.

“They’re most focused on the social aspects of their college experience,” he said. “They’re a stranger in a strange land. It’s about a sense of belonging — a sense of fit. It’s a very human thing.”

But a successful roommate pair-ing is less about shared interests and more about two people who can navigate the intricacies of living with another person, Chaskes said.

Complaints he often heard from freshman rarely centered on different interests but on the minutiae of cohabitation. “It’s

more, ‘She touched my stuff, he borrowed my shirt without ask-ing, he’s always leaving hair in the sink,’” Chaskes said. “It’s the activities of daily living that they need to negotiate.”

The inability to do that can lead to roommate horror stories. And there are no shortage of those.

Amy Garcia, 19, a sophomore at CSUN, said her relationship with her roommate deteriorated as quick-ly as the cleanliness of the room.

“It smelled like feet all the time,” she said. “She would only shower, like, once a week.”

Garcia politely asked for a room transfer, and she got along better with her second roommate. “She showered and stuff,” she said. “So that was good.”

On a recent afternoon, Brock-man and Rosales decided to make tacos for dinner in the kitchen they share with two other girls in their dorm suite. Brockman wondered

aloud if they were supposed to use cooking oil on the ground beef.

“I don’t know. Should I call my mom?” Rosales said.

“I was thinking of calling my mom!” Brockman answered with a laugh. On their own, they decid-ed against the oil. Smoke soon

wafted from the kitchen.They sat down at the table and

began to eat.“I like this,” Rosales said,

seemingly referring to both the tacos and their living situation.

“Me, too,” Brockman said with a smile.

courtesy of mcclatchy-tribuNe

roommAtesContinued from page 2


9423 Reseda Boulevard

Northridge, CA 91324

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Muna Adem daily sundial

College students are known to have a costly array of personal pos-sessions when leaving their parents’ home for a dorm room. In addition to clothing, furniture and books, many students bring personal elec-tronics and sports equipment.

Many students assume their belongings in the dorms are pro-tected by the university housing’s insurance, which is not the case. Students who live in the dorms are strongly encouraged to main-tain personal property insurance because the university does not cover or replace any items lost or damaged, according to the univer-sity housing website.

“I didn’t even know you can or (that insuring your property)was something you should do,” said Andre Gomez, 18, a freshman who studies marketing and lives on campus.

Jody Van Leuven, a manager in the Insurance and Risk Manage-ment office at CSUN, said students

do not think about it so there is not enough awareness for how insur-ance can protect them.

“Today, you have computers, game systems, tablets, TVs and many other technologies that can be very expensive, and replacing them can cost you,” Van Leuven said. “We all know insurance is boring to understand, but when you need it, it’s great.”

One way students can protect themselves is through renter’s insurance.

Renter’s insurance protects students personal property against damage or loss caused by fire, smoke, windstorm, theft, vandalism, riot, civil unrest and much more, according to the National Associa-tion of Insurance Commissioners. It can also protect the policyholder for liability in case someone is injured while on their property during a party or other occasions.

The premiums for renter’s insurance average between $15 and $30 per month depending on the location and size of the rental unit and the policyholder’s possessions.

CSU schools do not require stu-dents to live on campus, therefore they cannot be required to purchase insurance.

“We also want to keep the cost as low as possible, but I can’t think of anything better you can do as a student,” Van Leuven said.

Jessie Ochoa, 19, a sophomore who studies recreation tourism man-agement, used to live in a dorm. He wished he had insurance while stay-ing there, he said.

“I got my laptop and other stuff stolen, and insurance would have helped me a lot,” said Ochoa.

Some students who live in dorms also assume obtaining rent-er’s insurance and liability will not be necessary.

“I think I am covered by my parents’ insurance, so I don’t need it,” said Marrissa Borovard, 19, a freshman who studies English literature.

But Gretchen Cathey, an opera-tional manager at National Student Service Company (NSS), said in most cases, students are not protect-ed under their parents’ insurance.

“The big problem is that par-ents’ homeowner’s insurance often really has a high deductible and it can be anywhere from $500 to $2,000,” said Cathey. “So if students had their iPhone stolen, they cannot make a claim because it wouldn’t cover the deductible.”

The NSS is one of many compa-nies that provide property insurance for students.

“Our most popular policy is $6,000 of coverage with $25 deductible, which means that if you have to file a claim, you are only going to pay $25 out of your pock-et, and the premium for that is $146 a year,” she said.

Cathey said people do not nec-essarily know rental insurance is an option and it is already over-whelming and stressful for many parents to send their kids to college, so insurance is not on their mind unless the school is pushing it.

“But when most parents and students know it is an option and they see how inexpensive it is, they know it’s the right decision,” said Cathey.

Dorm students take risk without renter’s insurance


1. Das Bauhaus (p.3)8819 Etiwanda ave. northridge 91325

2. csUN student Housing (p.2)17950 lassen st.northridge 91325

3. eZ storage (p.6)9420 de soto ave.Chatsworth 91311

4. meridian Place (p.5)9423 Reseda Blvd. northridge 91324

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Daily Sundial Housing Guide Map

CSUN

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CSUN(see inset)

5. meridian Pointe Apartments (p.8)9500 Zelzah ave.northridge 91325

6. Provence island Apartments (p.3)17900 Hiawatha st.northridge 91326

7. Villa Grande townhomes (p.4)18641 saticoy st.Reseda 91335

Sundial Housing Guide

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