Choosing where to live your first year of college can be really difficult, especially when you don’t know the campus or the area. If you don’t know the inside scoop on campus, you could end up like my friend Stephanie who lived in Algonquin for the first year and hated her room so much that she left FAU altogether.

First thing you need to know is that you do have several options. Or, you could make sure you have all the facts and pick the best space.

Here at FAU, there are five on-campus housing options. The first four are dorms and are right in the middle of campus, where the library, cafeteria and classrooms are all within walking distance.

If you are a first-time college student, and have never taken a college class, you actually don’t have a choice in where you’ll be living. But fortunately, Glades Park Towers (GPT) is the newest dorm and is completely occupied by other fellow freshmen, who are just as confused and scared about college as you – which is okay.

These dorms are really cool because you become very close with your roommates and other people on the floor.

All students living in Glades Park Towers will participate in the First Year Student Housing (FYSH) Program and take a college success course, SLS 1503, in the fall semester, according to the Housing 2008-2009 brochure. Basically, this means that you and your freshman classmates will be in some of the same classes and have some additional support.

Algonquin Hall, also known as the Gonk by the students that live there, has pretty large dorms, compared to when I lived in them when I was a freshman: back then each room was occupied by two people and eight people shared the bathroom. Now all of the rooms are one person per bedroom. Although these are the oldest dorms on campus, all of the students who live there are extremely close.

My friends Cory and Jarred have lived in the Gonk since freshman year and say they “would never move out of here because we’re all like a family, and all very close.”

The Heritage Park Towers (HPT) are also dorm buildings and are exactly the same as GPT. But unlike GPT, HPT is open for all grades and ages. A cool part of HPT is the Living-Learning Communities (LLCs). This is a program that allows students that have the same majors and interests to live and work together, according to Housing. So if you want to get to know more people who are pursuing the same major as you, then the LLC program is a great idea.

IRT is my favorite dorm because it is almost like an apartment, and the split bathroom (a shower and sink combo in one bathroom and a toilet and sink combo in the other) is great because if someone’s in the shower, you don’t have to wait until they get out to go to the bathroom.

If you like to get up 10 minutes before your class or hate to look for parking, then living in any of these dorms will be a perfect choice for your first-year housing selection.

The last on-campus living space is the University Village Apartments (UVA), where you are more on your own for meals and rarely ever see your RA (resident assistant). These apartments are unlike any of the other living quarters at FAU. There are some major perks to living in the apartments as well as some pitfalls.

The kitchen is really a great addition because then you don’t need a meal plan. But sometimes if you have a dirty roommate, your kitchen may attract ants and be quite filthy. And if you know your roommates and get along pretty well, you will really enjoy the apartment-style layout.

But a few pitfalls of the apartments are that you have to walk a little further to get to the library and classrooms, and sometimes when you have people over who are just visiting, the architecture of the apartments is a little confusing because they all look the same!

So if you’re excited to live on campus, FAU has several options for you that range from close quarters to a more laid-back apartment-style layout.