New Students

Truth is, there is no answer. Each hall and floor will develop a new personality depending upon the new students moving in. The reality is, once your room is set up and you are running around campus all day, which first year hall you are in doesn’t matter nearly as much as the community you develop for yourself.

Creating diverse communities in each hall is our priority and students are assigned to accordingly. Cost and a preference for STEM house are the only preferences requested. College students significantly benefit from interacting and making friends outside of their primary group (ex. team) to ensure a diverse support group of friends and expanded identity development. This is particularly critical when issues arise within their primary identity group or they can no longer participate in that group's activities. 

First years live mainly in Minta Martin, Reid, Caroline, Queen Anne, Kent, and East with a few living in other halls. Traditional corridor style architecture has proven to be critical in helping students meet people and make friends quickly.
Almost every first year will live in a double room with a roommate.
Our halls range in size from the smallest, East at 21 residents, to our largest, Minta Martin at 143+.

There is no storage available on the campus. Students need to contact local storage companies to store belongings during the summer if they don’t want to bring them home. It is advisable to use the vacation times to shuffle/switch out belongings, especially season specific items. Students should bring anything non-essential home with them during spring break to avoid too much stuff to pack in May.

All halls have Resident Assistants. RAs are students who live and work in the halls. They are supervised by the professional staff, the Area Coordinators. Because they are students (and often athletes, club leaders, etc.), they are not available 24 hours a day. RAs can give advice, answer most basic questions and steer a student to the right office for help, report maintenance issues, enforce policies, plan activities. RAs will not wake students up to go to class, make sure the student is eating properly, etc. These are basic life skills the student is expected to do for themselves as an adult.

Students are expected to have basic independent living skills before they arrive on campus: how to talk to roommates, live cooperatively with others, how to clean their room (and as upperclassmen in suites, the bathrooms), how to do laundry, basic cooking skills, and the basic skills needed to live in a community with other people. Adjusting to college- living in a new place, adjusting to a different daily pattern, different and increased intellectual challenges- is hard enough. Students who have the skills to take care of themselves have an easier time adjusting and exhibit more confidence in their ability to adjust to college and be successful.

Students are allowed to bring a fridge. You can bring up to a 4.4 cubic foot fridge. Think about what you will need the fridge for. If you will need it for a lot of drinks and food, go with the 4.4. Very little can be put into the smaller, cube fridges. However, none of the first year halls have an elevator. If you can’t carry it, think about how you’re going to get it up the stairs.

Students are allowed to bring a microwave. Considering the size of the rooms, microwaves should be less than 1.2 cubic ft. A bigger fridge is more useful and worth the investment of space than a large microwave.

Students are also allowed to bring a television, although most students now watch shows on their laptops. If you do bring a tv, the walls cannot be damaged nor anything mounted on them except posters. As for the size of the tv, the rooms are not large and big tvs are typically damaged quickly. Save the big tv for your first post-college apartment!

The college does not insure students’ belongings. If something is stolen or damaged, the college will not replace it. Verify that your student’s belongings are insured either through your homeowner’s insurance or if not and it’s not offered, seek out renter’s insurance. There are companies that specialize in college student insurance.

Yes, almost every firstyear on campus has a roommate and they do just fine! For many students, sharing a room with someone is a new experience but it is a critical life skill that is needed for the rest of your life. Typically, students experiencing a roommate for the first time in their lives have a lot to learn: basic communication and negotiating skills, the difference between wants and needs, how to live cooperatively with another person, the importance of physically speaking to someone (and not just texting!), being mindful of another person’s needs and balancing them with their own.

Bringing an entire year's supply of anything takes up too much valuable space in the rooms! We have stores! There are 2 large grocery stores in town, Redners and Acme, and 2 small, specialized ones in addition to the weekly farmer’s market. The 2 small grocery stores are Chestertown Natural Foods and Los Jarochos Mexican Grocery. Every Saturday morning all year round, there is a farmer’s market in the Fountain Park, downtown Chestertown.

For home goods, there are several dollar stores, Peebles Department Store, and Welcome Home. Welcome Home has kitchen, bed and bath items while a few doors down, Twigs and Teacups also has a variety of items for the home. Downtown Chestertown has a variety of stores and you can find most things you need.

For periodic, “stock up” international grocery shopping, students will drive to stores like H-Mart in Ellicott City. It’s 1.5 hours away but for the occasional trip, it makes a nice day trip driving right past Annapolis and the outlet malls. Bring ice and a cooler! (or two) That area also has a variety of smaller, ethnic grocery stores. For malls and big box stores, students drive to Middletown, Annapolis, or Christiana.

Having overseen thousands of students move in over the years, here are some tips:
• Water is available on the Eastern Shore and it’s good water! There is no need to bring cases and cases of bottled water. Invest in a filter instead- you can send new filters to the student periodically via Amazon. It saves a lot of room!
• Same goes with ramen noodles or any other bulk food item. Every May, we donate several vans worth of ramen, Chef Boyardee and other food items that students have not used.
▪ If the student “might” need it or hasn’t used it in a year, don’t bring it. Anything can be sent by mail. Typically, if it’s not here and not a critical daily item, they don’t notice it missing. We see a lot of non-critical items thrown out in May that students realize they never used all year and don’t need. (and when we say a lot, it’s about 7 industrial sized dumpster loads)