College dorm life today:
Steve Leslie’s dorm room at Miami University has 20 plugs sprouting from the walls. They power a color TV, stereo, compact disc and DVD players, video game player, desktop computer and laptop, printer, scanner, refrigerator, microwave and two fans. Then there are rechargers for a cell phone, hand-held computer, camera, electric razor and toothbrush
. . . .
Today’s collegians are part of a generation raised on electronics, and colleges are having no choice but to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to upgrade electrical systems. Often, the upgrade costs are getting passed on to parents and students in the form of higher fees.
. . .
The average freshman at Miami University takes 18 appliances to campus, according to a March survey by the school.
And on the local front:
Maryville College in Maryville, Tenn., decided to tear down one residence hall last year and build a new dorm at a cost of $7 million.
“If too many women turned on their hair dryers in the morning, the circuit breakers would blow. That was happening daily,” said Bill Seymour, vice president and dean of students.
Dorm life back in the dark ages:
Here’s my electronics inventory when I lived in the dorm ten years ago:
- Clock
- Refrigerator
- Microwave
- Hairdryer
- Typewriter/computer (Yes, I had a typewriter. Fortunately, my senior year roommate let me use his computer for those longer papers.)
- Iron (rarely used).
- Radio/CD player.
There’s probably something else I’ve forgotten at the moment. But nothing that would overload the circuits. My dorm was a conservative one; TVs weren’t allowed.
Suffice it to say, I lived on fewer watts than youngsters do today.
When I had my first and only brief stint in a college dorm room, there wasn’t any such thing as a commercially available microwave. Or CDs. Much less desktop PCs or video games. (Well, we had Pong, but nobody could afford one for their dorm room). Hot plates and those little mini-fridges were the hot items, and a real status symbol.