The Movers.com Blog

One of Design Your Dorm's 3-D models

As the new school year is just about upon us, thousands of college students will soon be moving into dorm rooms at colleges throughout the country.  Undoubtedly, one of the biggest struggles for students when they move in is figuring out how to set up their room.  Design Your Dorm, a new free application, aims to make this process as easy as possible.

However, students can’t just set up a dorm room how they please; they will have to consider their roommates’ opinions as well. To make things even more difficult, they often have to make these decisions right on the spot, without having seen their room beforehand.

In addition to moving furniture with the click of a mouse, students can purchase a wide range of furnishings and decorations through the site as well.  All of these items, such as bedding, electronics, posters, and school supplies can be bought through DYD and delivered right to the college.  Many of these items can even be added to the 3-D model to help you plan out exactly how you want the room to look.

Despite the convenience, there are some flaws.  For one, the list of colleges isn’t that extensive.  However, as the site is relatively new, they will probably add more schools in the future.  At the same time, DYD provides generic models of dorm rooms for those whose colleges aren’t yet included.

Another problem, though not really DYD’s fault, is that they don’t always provide the exact measurements for each dorm room.  Each college is responsible for submitting its own measurements of the dorm rooms, but they don’t always get it right.

For instance, I tried looking up the room that I lived in during my freshman year at Rutgers University.  The model of 507 Clothier Hall was definitely different from the room I remember.  My room was a corner room and, thus, different from the other ones on the floor.  However, I assume Rutgers just provided the standard dimensions of the rooms rather than accounting for the few different ones.

While I’m sure this situation doesn’t happen all the time, students should be aware that the room might not be exactly as the 3-D model makes it appear.

Despite these minor problems, DYD can be pretty helpful for those heading off to the dorms.  Aside from giving you an idea of how you want to set up your room, you can purchase everything you need for your room and have it delivered right to your dorm.

Things have certainly changed a lot in the years since I first went to college:  I had just one brief phone call with my roommate to talk about who was bringing what.  If DYD was around at the time, I could have talked with my roommate about where we want the furniture, what decorations to put, and anything else related to our dorm room, before ever meeting.

Are you moving into a dorm room in the next few weeks?  Have you already figured out a layout?  Tell us with a comment!