UCLA’s ‘worrisome’ plan for tiny $600 dorms put on hold | Hacker News Reader

UCLA’s ‘worrisome’ plan for tiny $600 dorms put on hold

sfgate.com

5 pointsgnicholas10 comments

Ridiculous. How dare poorer students be allowed to save money by making compromises on their living situation? All standards must be based on the preferences of the upper-middle class.

When to went to school, students were mandated to stay in dorms their first year and had little choice in placement.

If by “aging 1981 apartment building” they mean an apartment building built in 1981, it is so frustrating to me that American buildings are essentially designed for a useful life of ~30 years before they need to be replaced. Though there are maintenance costs to maintaining older buildings, other things being equal isn’t it better to maintain rather than rebuild? My personal preference for older buildings aside, aren’t some of the most desirable and high-value apartments well-preserved older buildings?

My first dorm room sounded much smaller than this - granted it was only 2 of us. All our room had space for was a bed (over a dresser), a small desk, and a tiny coat closet on each side with about a 3 foot aisle in between our beds/desks.

My dorm at UT Austin was the same. Two of us crammed in a tiny room with one window and three feet separated us. The bed was narrower than a twin bed. The desk and its bookshelf would barely incorporate a modern laptop and mouse. It definitely would not have accommodated a 24” screen. It did matter back then as only a few students had PCs and they were gigantic.

My son is now at a dorm at TAMU. Although the building was built in 1942, it has movable furniture which allowed him to squeeze in a 24” screen and a printer. My son wanted this because although the school is out of the pandemic, many of the classes and all communication and office hours are done via Zoom. When he entered as a freshman, the first thing they gave him was a school ID, Office 365, google workspace, and Zoom. I joked with him he is ready to go to work with me. I was kidding until one day my boss asked me if my son was willing to take on small projects. He said he was too overwhelmed with school but thank you for the offer. There are over 80k students on campus and they definitely don’t have computers work spaces for everyone.

This was my freshman dorm. It was repurposed from an apartment building or a hotel (I forget which) 20-30 years before I arrived. I had the smallest unit on the floor (it was next to the lounge and you could tell they took space from my room to make the lounge bigger). It was fine for accommodating my minimal needs. Really I tried to minimize how often I spent in the room because if I wasn’t doing homework I was trying to be social and meet new people

“I don’t want to call these jails, but ... these aren’t really good dorms.”

In the UK, a standard dorm room is a 3m x 2m box that is indistinguishable from a jail cell.

If true, that implies that your jail cells are nicer than ours in the US. Our jail cells are deliberately punitive, actively uncomfortable, and designed to strip you of your dignity.

If jail cells were merely small and unadorned, our prisoners might use the time to rehabilitate and be prepared to re-enter society. As it is they come out either broken or borderline psychotic.

Yup. Our jail cells are nicer than the in the US. They even come with a TV, which the dorm rooms don't, and would have to pay a license fee for.

So the long way around, humanity has arrived back at 1910..turns out capitalism doesn't scale due to physical constraints.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com