Each year, Cal Poly freshmen arrive on campus accompanied by teary-eyed family members and overflowing move-in bins, tasked with their first college assignment: decorating their dorm room.
For some students this is considered an easy task — one pair of sheets and a cardboard beer box taped to the wall — and their dorm is transformed into a home. However, for others, move-in day is a calculated art of color coordinated bedding, matching picture frames, string lights in replacement of the feared “big light” and hand-picked vintage posters are all carefully packed away for move-in day.
For environmental earth and soil sciences freshman Taylor Thomas and nutrition freshman Brooklyn Hackatt, the latter was a reality. Their yakʔitʸutʸu dorm is color-coded and adorned with matching blue and white decorations. Their roommates all decided on pre-planned matching bedding and wall art, curating a room that mirrors the photos on many upcoming college girls’ Pinterest boards.
“We wanted it to be comfy, and we also just wanted our own spaces within the room,” Thomas said.
Dorm rooms are a small sanctuary for many freshmen, giving students a relaxing environment to go back to after a long day and a space to socialize.
“I really love all my little personalized picture frames, and I honestly love our rug because we have floor time, we all like to sit here,” Hackatt said.
Not every student showed up to move in day with all their decorations pre-picked out. For some first years decorating their dorm was a much longer process, requiring multiple trips to CVS printing and online orders in the weeks following move-in day, as roommates worked to make their communal space a collected home.
This was the approach for psychology freshman Hollin White and his roommates who took one look at their dorm and instead of seeing four blank walls, they saw a canvas.
“Just looking back [to move-in day] I think it would make me pretty depressed if I was looking at a cement wall every day,” White said.
White’s room looks as if a record player exploded onto the walls. Covered in collected vinyls, concert memorabilia and vintage music posters, it could even be mistaken for a record store.
“This really is what my walls look like at home,” White said.
Unsure of how much room he would have in their dorm in Yosemite, White only brought a few of his posters from home that held sentimental value. However, after moving in with his roommates — strategic marketing freshman, Charlie Cooney and food science freshman, Jasper Ledford — the trio began filling up the empty space.
“Overall, we built it together,” Cooney said.
The boys’ room is also home to a few hidden amenities, such as two guitars, high school prom photo strips, a not-so-secret childhood stuffed animal and a Needoh drawer — full of a collection of stress balls and squishies. One of Cooney and Ledford’s favorite decorations however is a matching set of posters that remind them of their home.
“Our tennis PNG [posters] from high school are pretty hilarious because these are gifts from our high school tennis coach,” Ledford said.
“They actually misspelled my last name,” Cooney said.
White, Cooney and Ledford also share a vintage locker stand, in which they store snacks and valuables.
“It was definitely a hassle carrying this from the parking lot here,” said White. “We have locks and we just keep, like, glasses, cameras, jewelry, even MacBooks [in the lockers] sometimes.”
Many freshmen have chosen to bring larger, less conventional items to college. Even if that means having to take a heavy trip up the stairs or sacrificing space in their dorms — some material items are worth the hassle. A reality for first year mechanical engineering majors Atticus Bierlein and Oliver Sickels, who couldn’t pass up the opportunity to turn their dorm into a nightly DJ show.
“I just love cooking up some fire beats,” Bierlein said.
Their yakʔitʸutʸu dorm room is home to two DJ boards. The first is a DDJ-FLX4, a smaller portable two-channel DJ controller, and the second is a much larger $1,500 XDJ-RX2, a two-channel all-in-one standalone DJ system with 8 multi-colored tactile pads and a 7-inch full-color touchscreen.
Sickels was originally influenced by his brother to start DJing, and eventually influenced Bierlein to learn as well, so bringing the boards to college was an easy decision to make. The DJs’ third roommate, aerospace engineering major Warren Rodermund, also went to high school with them. While he does not share his roommate’s DJing passion, he is a strong supporter of the duo’s musical endeavors.
“It’s always a vibe,” Rodermund said. “I mean, study time is hard to come by, but other than that, it’s pretty sweet.”
The duo also noted that the DJ boards have helped them make friends and socialize more with their floor, as they tend to DJ every day, typically with the door wide open.
“People stop by, I mean, [there’s] not too many complaints, I keep it down when it’s late,” Bierlin said.
Bierlin noted that DJing professionally would be a dream. But for now, he’s just getting started, so the DJ shows will remain in the safety of his dorm.
Along with the DJ boards, the boys have an inflatable “Happy Dad” football helmet from an old restaurant sponsor, a few posters, some gas station art and old beverage boxes taped up to fill the space.
“My old job was at a restaurant and they were sponsored by Happy Dad,” Sickles said. “They would have a merch tent out front of the restaurant, and [the inflatable helmet] got left in the restaurant and I was like, oh, can I take that? So I took it.”
On top of musical archives and live desk concerts, some have created their very own art galleries.
Freshman psychology major Riley Merrill and her roommate decided to take a more DIY route when decorating their Yosemite dorm. Adorned with charming hand painted water colors, pottery ceramic dishes and even a handmade wall fan.
The two first connected on Instagram because of their shared love of art, which is now clearly reflected in their dorm. With a cohesive color palette of pinks, greens and yellows, the duo even has matching headboards.
“I wanted comfort and hominess,” Mirrell said. “Most of the stuff, my decorations, I handmade, so it kind of does remind me of home.”
Mirrell plans to continue decorating her dorm with artwork, as both her and her roommate brought an abundance of art supplies with them to school.
“I’m gonna try to fill [the remaining wall space] with just my art pieces,” Mirrell said.
An important priority for the pair when planning out their dorm was keeping it light and tidy.
“We knew that we wanted it to be very open and clean, so we agreed that a rug would be the best way to make the space look larger,” Mirrell said.
Agriculture communications freshman Daren Deftereos and agriculture business freshman John Rosa decided the best way to make the dorms feel like home is to bring a piece of home with them.
Deftereos and Rosa are cousins, and decided to room together at Cal Poly. They have enjoyed the community they have found in the dorms while together.
“Having my roommates around, it’s just a very joyous atmosphere and [we’ve had] tons of good talks,” Deftereos said.
When decorating their dorm, the boys decided to bring whatever they wanted separately, which is how they ended up with a giant wooden clock, a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag, a zip-up bean bag and many rosaries.
While their dorm may have some unique uncoordinated decorations, what remains cohesive across their room is their connection to their faith.
“We’re like the ‘Jesus dorm,’ so if anyone wants to stop by and talk about the faith or even ask questions, our door is always open,” Rosa said.
The roommates use their Whiteboard outside of their yakʔitʸutʸu dorm to display a “verse of the day” to the neighbors on their floor.
One of Deftereos’s favorite decorations has to do with a sticky note that is taped to Rosa’s bulletin board. Displayed on the board is one of many messages Deftereos wrote to an individual who stole his locker during the first week of school
“I really wanted it back, and so I’d leave like little notes every day just wanting my locker back, but it never came,” Deftereos said. “But I hope they’ve been showering.”
No matter which dorm room you enter, each has a unique story that goes along with it. Whether first years want to host DJ sets in their room every night, express their artistic style, collect posters at each new concert they attend or make their pinterest board come to life — their small shoebox-sized dorm is not holding them back.
