Understanding Purdue Housing

One of the many concerns incoming freshmen have is what to do regarding their housing options. In addition to the roommate selection process, you may be interested in seeing your on-campus options in terms of amenities and the communities available within the building. For example, when I accepted my admission to Purdue as a freshman, I knew I was interested in a standard double that I had experienced at a summer college program. To ensure my University Residences housing, I applied to Vertically Integrated Projects so that I would be able to pursue a research project as a freshman while also guaranteeing my housing within Earhart Hall through the connected learning community. For more information on learning communities, read our previous blog! Many freshmen will live in a residence hall, even if they are not in a specific learning community. Now, as a Resident Assistant or RA in Earhart Hall, I have been trained on the term “residence hall”; our halls go beyond a traditional “dormitory” format, derived from the word for sleep. Instead of being just a place to sleep, residence halls provide opportunities to residents for building connections and growing life skills. Basically, you can make your experience what you want it to be; you can never attend a single hall event, or you can make all of your neighbors your new best friends. 

If you are interested in the Women in Engineering learning community, you would live in one of the few all-female residence halls in Meredith South. Meredith South has a “pod” format, meaning that there are multiple pods or communities on each floor connected by an RA. Meredith South is also one of the newer halls that offer several room formats, including singles, doubles, and quads. On each floor, Meredith South has study spaces and individual floor lobbies, in addition to a larger lobby on the first floor. Currently, Meredith South also has Panera and QDOBA located on the first floor; you can grab a retail lunch or dinner right in your basement! Regardless of whether or not you choose to live in the Women in Engineering learning community in Meredith South, you will become quickly acquainted due to all of the events frequently held in the conference room on the first floor.

The other all-female halls on campus are Windsor Halls and Meredith Hall. More likely than not, you will hear other students refer to Meredith South as “new Meredith” and Meredith Hall as “old Meredith” or “Meredith North”. Meredith was previously known as the “X Hall”, since from above it is in the shape of an X with four wings. Inside Meredith, food options include 1Bowl and Sushi Boss. Some students may balk at Meredith without air conditioning, but the picnic tables and large lawns outside are great places to get fresh air, and all of the common spaces and lobbies have air conditioning. Meredith has a standard double format for most of its rooms.

The last all-female hall on campus is Windsor Halls. “Halls”, you ask? Windsor contains five individual buildings: Duhme, Shealy, Warren, Wood, and Vawter. Windsor dining court is located within the complex, and Duhme homes the Center for Advocacy, Response, and Education (CARE). Windsor has very unique basement lobbies, perfect for both studying or hosting movie nights with friends; Windsor has also been nominated for awards due to the development of its “Positivity Place”, a comfy and quiet area of the basement reserved for destressing. Windsor also has tunnels connecting each of the buildings, so it’s easy to visit your friends in another building without having to brace the Indiana cold that covers most of the school year. Windsor offers singles, doubles, and triples with AC, with some floors having multiple communities, connected by a central community bathroom. Duhme was also home to Amelia Earhart while she was a faculty member at Purdue, and began the Amelia Earhart Faculty-in-Residence program still standing today.

If you aren’t looking to be in the Women in Engineering learning community or would prefer a coed hall, Shreve Hall and Earhart Hall are great alternatives for still having the option of a learning community while being a short walk away from the Merediths and Windsor. Shreve Hall is home to one of the University Residences Academic Support Centers, with study rooms and spaces, a computer lab and printers, and even classrooms where some first-year engineering courses are taught. Shreve also has a lobby area above the URASC, affectionately known as the “shlobby” to many residents.

During Boiler Gold Rush, many of the teams are designed by grouping residential communities together; “Shrevehart” is one of such teams, a combination of Shreve and Earhart. Personally, I am biased toward Earhart; while we may not have the best dining court on campus, it’s really nice to head down to your basement for lunch or dinner without having to venture out on colder nights of the school year. Earhart Hall and Dining Court is of course named after Amelia Earhart, whose statue is frequently seen holding oranges or bananas as offerings from students exiting the dining court. “Shrevehart” contains many engineering learning communities, and has standard double rooms with air conditioning and floor community bathrooms with one community per floor. “Shrevehart” also has a joint Grand Prix racing team, which students can become more involved with through the hall clubs.

Another housing option that combines amenities with an academic component is Honors College and Residences. Similarly to Meredith South, Honors has pod-style housing, with groups of rooms clustered together in a community, within two separate North-South buildings. The design of Honors is often compared to Harry Potter, both for its large library, but also due to the five houses that students are assigned to: Copper, Palladium, Platinum, Silver, and Titanium. Instead of RAs, Honors has RHPs: Residence Hall Preceptors (again, think Harry Potter-style prefect). In addition to the large library, Honors is home to the STEAM lab, where students can work on projects and different types of printers and presses. For dining options, Cosi has a retail location on the first floor of HCR North. Honors has room options for singles, doubles, triples, and quads.

For those of you wondering what an RA is, we are fellow students here to act as easily-accessible mentors trained in on-campus resource referrals as well as handling incidents within the halls. As an RA in Earhart, my residents are primarily freshmen, so I’m there to answer their questions about just about anything relevant to life on campus. Your RA can be a great person to turn to, since there have been many times that I can’t necessarily help or provide an answer, but I almost always know someone who can. RAs will host events for your community, meaning that if there is more than one community on a floor there may be multiple RAs on that floor. We often provide free food or snacks to residents, since sometimes that Insomnia cookie on a Tuesday night is the best way to support someone making their way through midterms or looking to find a place to make more friends. Most of what we try to do as RAs is fun, supportive, and optional; however, following the rules is not optional and sometimes documenting incidents where these rules are broken is the less fun part of our job. RAs complete check-ins with their residents to make sure they are adjusting well to the stressors of new college life since freshman year is intimidating both academically and with the newfound independence that comes with living on your own with minimal supervision. We also work to make your “door decs” with resident names and often a theme, as well as bulletin boards with educational content. For updates, your RA will likely have a newsletter of some kind, to be sent out on a weekly basis. Overall, your RA is someone who has already gone through the rigors of their first year of college in a residence hall and can help walk you through yours.
For more information, visit https://housing.purdue.edu/.

Christine Mayo, CHE '25

Recruitment Project Committee

Stay Connected With Purdue WiE Program!

Facebook: Purdue Women in Engineering

Instagram: @purduewiep

Blog: purduewiep.blogspot.com

Email: welink@purdue.edu

Purdue Women in Engineering