I'm subletting an apartment from a recently graduated Tech student, and even though I recently graduated from U-Md. College Park, my rental got me thinking about how college students decorate. Maybe it was the poster of the dogs playing poker that was on my bedroom wall when I moved in. Or maybe it was the seven cinderblocks on our third floor deck that made me wonder who had bothered to lug them up three flights of stairs. In any case, I wondered how haphazard college students' decorating schemes could be.
To be sure, I never expected to walk into a college students' apartment and see Picasso prints or art nouveau sculptures scattered about -- and certainly not in a college town made up of so many engineering students. But the trend I'd followed until last night made me think that some students were willing to put anything on their walls.
Take my neighbor, Abe. On a tour of his place last night, I saw a palm tree sculpture made of pipe cleaners; Abe's employee of the month plaque from Burger King in a position of prominence in the living room (he insists he didn't put it up); a string of Budweiser beer flags draped along the top of the wall throughout the living room; more beer posters; a stop sign; a neighborhood watch sign and a massive Hollywood Grande hotel banner that Abe said he thinks was swiped from a fence in Florida. The only framed item we could find was in Abe's room. It depicted a sort of inspirational sunset on a lake. Abe says it was there when he moved in.
As Abe's friend told me, "If you walk into an apartment with a framed anything, it's probably a girl's apartment."
(A side note on Abe's apartment, which has at times been rented by engineering students: Never have I seen college students take the time to lay out a perfect octagon on the carpet with masking tape. But there it was, in apartment #2.)
I decided to check with some female neighbors about their decorating styles. Sure enough, upon entering their apartment I was greeted with plum-colored walls, photographs taken by one of the residents, and, sure enough, framed Van Gogh prints. When one of the residents, LJ, took me on a tour, she showed me how she'd refitted posters and photos into cheap Walmart frames for a classier look. Her bedroom walls were adorned with more of her photographs and several attractive prints of couples kissing. She likes kissing photos, she told me.
Across the hall, most of Kate's photos and posters didn't have frames, but she had added some personal touches: Sandals glued to the wall to remind her of the beach and several photos of toads. She had added the names of guys things hadn't worked out with to many of the toad photos.
Those were just two apartments, so I don't think they're representative of all Tech students, but it still makes me think Kate and LJ's apartment had a few more personal touches than most. After all, the reindeer dangling from the apartment deck across the way smacks of "recycled" lawn ornament rather than a commentary on the ills of holiday consumerism. Same goes for the Christmas light display down the road that's set to grand mal blinking speed (although last night I walked by that apartment and they had bird feeders — real bird feeders! — hanging from the porch).
Do you have neighbors — college students or otherwise — that have curious or outstanding home decorations? Let us know by clicking "comments" below.
— Kevin Litten
