To Dorm or Not to Dorm

Posted By JBS Admin on Feb 5, 2015 |

Choosing when to move away from home is always a difficult decision (even if it’s just for a summer!) While the idea of dorming may seem intimidating at first, there are a lot of ways that choosing to dorm can make you stronger. For one, it builds character. It also pushes your to grow up much faster than other teenagers. Often, being extremely passionate about dance involves taking certain steps in life that may challenge you, but these challenges are always necessary in reaching your goal. When making the decision to dorm there many things that you and your parents should consider as a team. Here are a few things you’ll want to talk about before flying the coop:

Room dynamics:

Here in the middle of Manhattan where space is limited and highly valued, living style can differ greatly from what you would find in a typical suburban household. It’s important to consider how many people you’ll be living with and in what type of setting. Here at JBS’s Grove street housing, we house our students in apartments that hold up to 7 or 8 students. Each unit is what we call “apartment style” as opposed to traditional “dormitory style”. This means that each apartment has about 4 to 5 bedrooms, one kitchen, and one bathroom. The kitchen is equipped with all major appliances including an oven/stove, refrigerator, microwave, and all necessary kitchenware (cups, utensils, bowls, plates, etc.) Each room comes with beds, dressers, desks, and other forms of storage space. Generally, each unit holds two doubles, one triple, and a single. If you are concerned about sharing a room with someone, you can always request to be placed in a single.

 All in all, the “apartment style” living gives one a healthy amount of autonomy but also helps foster a social environment where in your roommates become your family. Moreover, the supreme location of the Grove street housing right in the middle of Greenwich Village allows one to explore the wonderful neighborhood together with your roommates on your time off!

Supervision:

Who will be there to help you? No matter what school you’re interested in, it’s important to find out what resources are available to you. How many supervisors are there and what are the situations that they are trained to help you with? Here at Grove Street we have four staff members called Resident Advisors that live in the building all year round, so they can help you whenever necessary.

During the summer, we expand our housing facilities to multiple locations across the city and to our summer intensive programs across the country. Even though the dynamics change slightly depending on the location, there is a full staff of RA’s and chaperones to assist you 24/7.

Responsibilities:

Although we do provide Resident Advisors (and chaperones during the summer for children under 13), we still hold our students to high standards. Living away from your parents means you’ll have a whole new set of responsibilities that you might not be used to. We refer to Grove Street Housing as an “Independent Living Area”. This means that we expect our students to maintain a certain level of independence; thus, you will be expected to do many things that you may not have ever done before such as taking care of yourself, keeping on top of your own homework, cooking for yourself, washing your own dishes, cleaning your room, and more. You and your parents should talk about the necessities and what you’ll need to practice before you go. The housing program you choose might have other chores or responsibilities that are required by all students, so it’s important to find out exactly what those are.

Making these kinds of decisions is a part of life, especially when you are passionate about dance. Sometimes it’s hard to know what is right for you, but hopefully, if you ask yourself these questions, it’ll help to make your decision way easier.

JBS Admin (69 Posts)

Founded in 1953 by Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino, Joffrey Ballet School maintains the vision of its founders to transform passionate dance students into versatile, individualistic artists able to collaborate and evolve fluidly in a fast-changing society. With an accredited dance program that offers two core areas of study – ballet and jazz/contemporary – JBS is known for its diverse curriculum and has the largest summer intensive training program in the country.