This year, record breaking numbers have been recorded as the largest incoming freshman class in CU history arrived. Sounds great, right? Well, with these numbers there have come some challenges. For parts of the student body that reside in Pickett, a three-person-to-a- room lifestyle has been adopted.

The same space in a dorm that two people once occupied, now has to hold three.

Amy Fredrickson Residence Assistant of Pickitt level three, said, “I think that a few people [are] annoyed with it being cramped. If you are a really neat person and the other two people are really messy then you could be really annoyed by that.”

The sense of community in Pickett is stronger this year, but with that two people can connect well and leave the third roommate out of the loop.

Some argue that Pickitt was originally built to hold three people per room. Jennifer Cool from Spiritual Formation said, “The generation today is used to having their own bedroom and their own bathroom.”

Complaints from students about the close quarters may simply be their change in lifestyle that comes with living in a community style dorm such as Pickett.

However, students living in those housing situations express a different train of thought.

“I think it would be nice if they would be bigger,” said freshman Pickett resident Emily Schock.

Many of the students in Pickitt with three to a room found out that they were rooming with two other roommates instead of just one on short notice. Schock said, “I didn’t find out about my third roommate until right before school started. They just sprung it on us.”

This was caused by students who registered late in the year or suddenly changed from being a commuter to a resident.

Like President Joe Stowell said, it might be time to call in the bulldozers and break new ground.

There are other things that can be done besides building new dorms. A change in rules would help the situation. Right now, a student must be 21 or a junior to live off of campus. By lowering the age that students can live off campus, students would be able to better enjoy their college experience.

Also, the offices could be relocated and people but put back in Quincer.

A change that would be the simplest of all would be to put four people in the Babcock apartments, the amount of people they were intended to have instead of only the current three. Cool explained that students are giving housing assignments according to their preference. Freshman are not typically put in the Babcock apartments because upper class get first preference. It breaks up the freshman community in the dorms as well.

Following the recent trend, next year’s freshman class will be even bigger than this year’s freshman class. However, Cool said students should continue to look at the bright side.

“I just see the excitement,” she said. “If our biggest problem is tripling Pickitt, were doing great.”