Research Blog #2: Scouting the Territory

My topic idea about dorm life has gained some momentum over the past week. Through my own experiences, I am very eager and passionate to write about this topic, especially as I have pondered more and more about the importance and influence living away from home has on individual college kids. My topic became even more focused after I attended Rutgers Residence Hall Association Leadership Development Day where Gregory Blimling, vice president of student affairs, enthusiastically spoke about the importance of dorm life and even stated a startling fact that college students who dorm have a 4% higher graduation rate. I am hoping to plan an interview with him in order to find out more information about Rutgers is currently affected by dormitory students and equally what the students gain from the experience. In addition, I learned about a co-op dormitory building outside of Cook Campus at Rutgers University which offers students cheaper living for individual and team cooking, cleaning, and management of the building. I might want to illustrate the Living Learning Communities, Co-op Dorm, and Recovery Dorm offered at Rutgers. A research paper highlighting the positive outcomes of dorm life seems like the ideal route I want to take in order to demonstrate to my audience the various and unnoticed benefits.

For my Google search, I entered “dormitory life” “college dorm benefits” and “dormitory outcomes”.  My key words including “dorm/dormitory” yielded results varying from articles and scholarly journals titled with similar research for my topic. I really need help with finding out how to attach links to my blog but here are some of the links I enjoyed. This website, http://president.rutgers.edu/letter_062104.shtml, highlighted Gregory Blimling and his addition to the Rutgers University community which I found inspiring especially after hearing him give a speech about Residence Hall life. I think he has a lot of input to offer about the gains of dorm life while he is resourceful and a huge part of Rutgers. This link,  http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rhetoric/105H17/mkimball/cov.html, was written about Iowa State University by Mariah Kimball and its correlation to greek life. Lastly, http://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/11/nyregion/more-city-students-choose-dormitory-life.html, was an article written from the New York Times about city students dorming more regularly because the influx for independence and freedom. From Google scholar I found articles but with more credibility including http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327795jra0403_2 but I was denied access to the full length version.

From these searches I feel more assured that there is solid evidence and statistics to back up my point of view and I have psychologists to back up the mental growth dormitory living might have on an immature adolescent.  My topic did find some bumps in its path because there are so many angles to take with this topic but now my real question is how can I extend this topic to something potentially insightful and innovative. I want my college dorm experience research paper to be page turning and informative.

Tentative Research Topic on Dorming Benefits

Hello! My name is Amanda Sedlmayer and I am a freshman here at Rutgers University. I am very eager to begin this class and learn from everyone about the pertinent and crucial topics facing higher education. For my research topic I would really like to outline the benefits to living on campus as a college student. Many students miss out on gaining independence, learning the value of living on their own, and managing time efficiently. From my observations of students who commute to college, there is stress involved with getting to class on time and struggles with the time in between classes. I also see a dilemma that commuting students are not as involved on campus in extra-curricular activities and do not meet as many peers and advisors as students who live in the dorms. There is plenty of networking opportunities and more awareness on informational meetings for students who live on campus. Living away from home also gives students the advantage to learn more about accountability for their own actions, how to refuse bad habits and how to work better with others among one living space which could make a difference once out in the work field. The only dilemma I see with this topic is finding tangible evidence and statistics to back up my point of view. I find it very interesting and I have personal experience motivating me to write about this topic. Again, I hope as a class we can learn a lot from one another and ourselves especially since this is a hybrid class! Thank you.