About Straus, by Nadiah Muhammad

Straus has separate entryways (and a fab common room). Most rooms are quads although the fourth floor is a huge double the size of a quad (yes i was extremely lucky freshman year). There are no lifts so after carrying all your boxes all the way up you may be cursing the place but we are rewarded with decent sized rooms and ensuite bathrooms. The quads will have two double rooms, a common room and a bathroom. You may have not noticed but Nhung and I both got lucky and lived on the fourth floor, meaning we had a huge common room and a huge double roughly the size of two doubles AND a bathroom. There are windows in all bedrooms and common rooms (i had the cute round ones). Floors are wooden and no carpets. my room was quite big so it wasn't quite as warm as the others were. but on the whole i think the shining point of Straus was the ensuite bathrooms and the fact that each entryway was small and quite close knitted.

Now on to the bad news. There are NO laundry facilities, meaning you have to trudge to Weld to do your laundry even in the middle of winter. There isn't really a study space either but there are music rooms and the trash room in the basement. The common room is nice but perpetually booked by other people. And since the dorm is split into entryways, most of the time you may no even know the people a door or two down the building. Having said that the location is not all that bad. The distance to the 'berg and to the Science Center is ok. It's still in the yard after all. Libraries are still considered close too. All in all, distance will not be a problem. Especially when you have friends in the union dorms :)