Room Swaps

It is mid November and time for the room swaps to begin.

Seven girls living on the third floor of East Shaw spend a day preparing for their move and the next day is spent moving furniture, clothing, and other personal items back and forth down the hall until every student was in their new room.

The success of this move is not only a relief to the students themselves, but to the mentor and intercultural aide as well.

"Once there is like a lot of issues in the hall, it can get overwhelming. Like you want everybody to be happy where they are living. When you have all this chaos and all these girls not happy, you put a strain in the floor and the relationships that we are trying to bring together," said OCAT Intercultural Aide Mimi Martinez.

Friends of other floor members have even noticed the difference in the mood of the floor overall since the room swap.

"I visit my friend at least once a week and since the girls down the hall have switched rooms with each other, there are a lot less arguments going on towards the end of the night when they all used to be home at the same time. Everyone seems to be a lot happier and a lot more open to having fun than they used to when the girls personalities were clashing," said Michigan State University sophomore Jessica Davis, "This transitional housing thing is a joke. It is causing too many people to live in too cramped a space...no wonder so many students are unhappy."