7 Things You Only Understand If You Live In Centreville Hall At UMD
Most people who have lived in or currently live in Centreville Hall have many mixed emotions about it. Some people love it and some people hate it. No matter what the opinion is, these are some things that you only understand if you lived in Centreville Hall at UMD!
1. Constantly being able to smell the farm…
You know you’re approaching Centreville when you start to smell the odor from the UMD campus farm. Not only can you smell the farm from right outside the dorm, but from inside too. You decide to open your window to let the breeze come through and then it hits you, the scent of manure and animals. You now have to decide if the breeze is worth it or the scent is just too overwhelming that not even some Febreze can mask it.
2. Saving all your dining points because you go to North Campus Snack & Shop (CCC).
When you realize you have no more snacks left in your room, you face the decision of walking all the way to the Diner or staying in the Cambridge Community and going to the Incon. Most of the time, you choose the Incon. Unfortunately, dining points are not accepted here. Therefore, when the end of the semester comes and all our friends who lived in the Denton or Ellicott Community are near the end of their dining points, we have an abundance left to give them.
3. You take advantage of your lobby, until you see the rest of the dorms.
When you first enter Centreville Hall at UMD on move-in day, nothing special about the lobby really stands out. It has a front desk, snack machines, study rooms, and mailboxes. Seems pretty average. However, when you start to venture into the other dorms, you realize this lobby is like the Ritz while the other dorms’ lobbies are the Holiday Inn.
4. One side of the hall feels like a wind tunnel and the other is a sauna.
The air conditioning in Centreville isn’t the best because it can’t be controlled individually. So more often than not, the windows are opened. Depending on the direction of the wind, one side of the building will get gusts of wind that are powerful enough to slam your door shut, while the other side feels like a sauna. This trade off constantly goes back and forth between sides throughout the year.
5. You think you’re going to meet so many people on your floor but then you realize every floor (except two) is split in half.
When finding out you’ve been assigned to Centreville, you assume your floor is going to have so many people on it. However, little did you know the dorm is split in half by a fire wall that makes you unable to reach the North side if you live on the South side (unless you live on floors 4 or 7). So unfortunately, you don’t meet as many people on your floor as you were expecting.
6. The 5th floor North showers are freezing, no matter how long you wait for the water to warm up.
Nothing is worse than a cold shower…. especially in the winter. On 5th floor North, no matter how early you turn the water on before getting in, the water will still be cold. You get used to the routine of either taking a very cold shower as fast as you can, or going to the 4th or 6th floor to shower.
7. Not having to go to Mckeldin because you study in the basement.
Some people (like me) discovered the basement study room during finals week. Since this is a mostly scholars dorm, it comes with the luxury of having a huge study room in the basement. So, on those cold days when you don’t want to leave your dorm but have a huge exam the next day, you can just go to the basement to have the perfect study space in Centreville Hall at UMD.
