HPU Dorms

Hi. I'm an international student from the Philippines and I major in Communication. I moved to Hawaii in the Spring of 2013 and, not knowing anyone or anything about Hawaii, I decided it would be a good choice to live in the student dorms. So that's what I'm going to talk about today.

In all honesty, I haven't seen any dorms from any other American universities, so I don't really have anything to compare them to. HPU's dorms are not extravagant but keep the simple, relaxed charm that comes with being in Hawaii. The rooms are quite bare to begin with, so if you really want to make it your own, you can decorate it. Some of my friends decorated their rooms with all sorts of stuff that made it look really fun. The bathrooms are nice and simple to, and I luckily never had the problem of trying to use the bathroom when someone else was. Different schedules I guess. In short, the dorms itself are simple and if you want to have a nice room, like any other dorm, you have to make an effort to make it look nice and keep it clean.

The part of living in the dorms that I liked the most was the people. I lived in Kukui with Gabby as my RA. She was by far the friendliest person that I know, and not just as an RA. She was always extremely approachable and if she didn't hear anything from me in some time, she would take the time to ask me how I was doing or about anything really. Everyone in Kukui was nice to each other and always invited each other to go out to events or hikes. I did however, hear that the other dorms surrounding us were filled with drama, the kind that happens in high school, but Kukui was a nice little sanctuary from that where everyone was decent and friendly to each other. The only downside to living in the dorms is if you don't have your own mode of transportation. I didn't have a car, a moped or even a bicycle, so I had to use the buses or the shuttles. The shuttles were great. I could go downtown any time I wanted to but the problem is during late at night or during the weekends. During the weekends, there are significantly less shuttles, and so you have to take the bus that comes only every hour. And at night, the shuttles stop at about 10:30 and the buses stop shortly after that, so unless you know someone who as a ride, you're practically stuck in the campus. The campus dorms isn't the only housing available though. There are countless student housing areas in Waikiki, which is the place you'd want to live in if you're into nightlife and the city, and it's conveniently a block away from the beach. The best student housing I've seen is called Beachwalk. Nice quiet place but near everything. It's small so everyone gets to know each other and there's a pool.

Now, back to the topic of campus dorms. The food. he food situation was always quite iffy for me. The food was alright. Some days it would be amazing, some days it wouldn't be so good. I LOVED breakfast though. I would never miss breakfast. Once in a while there'd be pizza day, where it would be lots of fun to pig out, and there always was a grill open where you could order burgers, or other stuff I can't remember too much. I used to eat about 2 burgers a meal! haha! The dining commons specially helped when I ran out of money. Because it was already payed for, I was sure to have at least 2 free meals there a day where I could literally eat as much as I wanted. There was a major downside to it though, and that was the schedule. The dining commons would only be open for breakfast, lunch or dinner for about an hour and a half to two hours, so if you had a class at those times, you'd miss the full meals. That sucked a lot. There's an option where you can fill these forms out so they can save some food for you, but frankly, the dorms would have been PERFECT if they dining commons could have been open for at least a large portion of the day. It's a dorm filled with college students. College students eat. A lot.

So, I hope this painted as clear a picture of the dorms as you'd like. I definitely made lots of friends living in the dorms and I think it was a good choice staying there for at least one semester so I could get my barrings. The dorms are in a beautiful location and every morning, you'll wake up to probably one of the most picturesque scenes you can imagine. If you're a student moving into Hawaii for the first time, staying in the dorms for a semester is a definite must. It's not perfect but hey, that's what makes it fun.