Housing 101

Hello Eagles, old and new! It’s an extremely exciting time on our beautiful campus, as our housing application has gone live! Returning students have already had the chance to reapply for housing for the next academic year. However, if you are a current student who missed the priority deadline, the application will reopen on March 15th. For any of you incoming Eagles, hang tight! The housing application is set to open for you at the beginning of May.

Here at Eastern, we have three different types of residence halls that our first-year students can choose from. Our most popular and common room is called suite style. If you stick both of your hands out, palms facing down, and touch your thumbs together, this is your best visual aid. Let’s pretend in one room, there are you and your roommate. You walk through the bathroom, and you’ll find another room with two suitemates! The majority of our residence halls have this style of room, including Putnam (first-year students only), Walton, Sellers, Best (has a 3.3 GPA requirement), Hoyt, and Pittman.

Tour Guide Mohammed showing the suite-style layout with his hand trick!

The second option is still suite-style, as described above, and can be found in Downing. The difference, however, is that this is our Honors-only residence hall. Please see the Honors College requirements here. These rooms are made for four people, but instead, have two smaller bedrooms, and shared living space in the middle, as well as a bathroom.

The third and final option can be found in our most recently renovated residence hall, Wise. In this building, students can have a roommate and have community bathrooms on each floor. I know the shared bathrooms may turn students away, however, your bathrooms are cleaned professionally three times a day and you have air conditioning! (All of our residence halls have heat.) For the 2021-2022 academic year, Wise will only have converted single rooms. As you can see, we have a number of options to choose from. Check out our virtual room tours, find a style that fits you best, and we can’t wait to see you on campus! To see the Housing Rates for the 2020-2021 school year, check here.

As for roommates, there are a few ways you can find one. You may know someone from your high school who’s committed to Eastern, or maybe you’ve connected with someone on the new student Facebook page! When you fill out the housing application, you will be prompted to answer a series of questions like early bird or night owl? or cats or dogs? You’ll be shown a list of potential roommates who share similarities with you, and you can message them there. Once you’ve found a roommate, the two of you will create a group (you can also make a group with two others to complete your suite), and you’ll receive a lottery time and day to select your room.

Please keep in mind that all incoming freshmen students are required to live on campus unless they are commuting from your permanent home address and it is within a 50-mile radius.

For those of you choosing between commuting and residence life, take it from someone who was one of the select few from my graduating class to live on campus. Almost all of my friends from high school commuted to and from EMU, while I lived in Putnam Hall. Was I scared beyond belief? Absolutely. Did I regret living on campus while all of my friends commuted from my hometown? Absolutely not.

Living on campus opened up more opportunities for myself than I ever thought possible. On August 30th, 2019, I found myself in front of Putnam Hall, ready to move in, but not knowing what to expect or how to feel. Change is scary, but that doesn’t mean change is a bad thing. Choosing to live on campus was one of the best decisions I could have ever made for myself.

It didn’t even take a single day for me to fall in love with Eastern. New Student Orientation showcases all of the resources our University has to offer while bringing nothing but complete fun and excitement into play. Surrounded by hundreds of people in the middle of Bowen Fieldhouse, someone handed me a bright green flier reading APPLY TO BE A CAMPUS TOUR GUIDE. I filled out the application by the end of the week, and the rest is history. If I weren’t standing at the right place at the right time, then maybe I wouldn’t be writing this post right now. Maybe I wouldn’t have found the student organizations that I’m a part of. Maybe I wouldn’t have found my best friends in the entire world. I owe it all to taking a leap of faith and living on campus.

Living here, you’re in the middle of everything. It only takes a few minutes to get to your first class, and you see a handful of people you know on your way to your second one. If you’re considering living on campus, I say go for it. Get involved. Go to the football games (home games have free admission!). Find people who make this place feel like home. I promise it will be worth it.

If you have any questions about Housing and Residence Life, feel free to email them at housing@emich.edu!

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Housing Application Found Here!