Every year, students need to make an important decision: deciding where to live. Whether you decide to live on North, South or West Campus, this decision will affect how the rest of your year unfolds. And no, I am not being dramatic. Before sophomore year, I requested to live in a double dormitory on West Campus. All I knew was that West Campus is where most sophomores live, and I didn’t see a point in deviating from the norm. Ironically, I ended up living by myself in a double on South Campus. Although I wasn’t too happy that the school couldn’t follow through with my request, I quickly became content with my living situation.
When people think of South Campus housing, Cascadilla Hall is usually the first, if not only, thing that comes to mind. If this holds true for you, allow me to put Sheldon Court on your radar. Overall, my experience living in Sheldon Court this past year has been a net positive. I would highly recommend students to live here — if you can get over the downsides I will mention.
Although South Campus generally gets a bad reputation, I have had a great experience this year. Some may argue that I am just lucky to have been put in a double with no roommate — a “dingle” as some call it. However, there is a surprisingly high number of people in Sheldon Court that have doubles to themselves. Perhaps this is due to misconceptions around living in Sheldon Court often cause students to switch out of their room assignment, leaving students like me very happy in an extra large room.
A random observation I have noticed is that the walls between rooms are pretty soundproof, but the door to the hallway is absolutely not — so if you were to move in, keep the noise down in the hallway. Since the building was constructed in the early 1900s, it is no surprise that the rooms are not very modern. The floors in the rooms, hallways and living spaces are carpet. As for closet space, since it is enough to store my massive amount of clothes, I can confidently say it is sufficient. I have to admit, the size of my double is pretty small, and if I was not living in it by myself it would feel cramped. However, corner rooms make for much more spacious doubles, so pick and choose if you can.
Sheldon Court is located right above Collegetown Bagels and in the heart of Collegetown, which makes it very convenient for coffee chats on weekdays or trying new restaurants on weekends. My favorite thing about the location is the short distance to main bus stops. The College & Oak stop, located right across the street, takes just 10 seconds to walk to, which is perfect for when I am running late. I take the bus to class every day, and from my experience, the TCAT being unreliable is a myth. More often than not, the buses arrive on time or a few minutes late, but it is rare that they do not show up at all. As long as you familiarize yourself with the TCAT schedule and account for slight time discrepancies, taking the bus will be convenient and save you plenty of time. Not to mention, you will not have to walk up and down the atrocious slope on West Campus every day.
However, the location has a few downsides as well. Firstly, if your room is on a lower floor and faces College Ave, it can get pretty loud throughout the day and even late into the night. Thankfully I am a deep sleeper, and if you are too, I would not classify this issue as a big concern. Another annoyance is Sheldon Court’s distance from dining halls. Since there are no dining halls on South Campus, the closest dining hall is a 12 minute walk to West Campus. I have been able to deal with this by eating at dining halls after class or club events before going back to my dorm.
The building itself has five floors and a basement. It can occupy up to 164 students; most of the students are upperclassmen. Because of this, there are not usually any major disturbances or large gatherings in the dorms, which is good if you like a more chill environment. Each floor has a common room, a decently sized kitchen and gender-separate bathrooms. The bathrooms are kept surprisingly clean and I have not experienced any bathroom traffic even though there are only three showers, sinks and toilets. The basement is pretty spacious: one laundry room with four washers and four dryers, a piano room and plenty of seating and working spaces. Unlike the West Campus Gothics, Sheldon Court has an elevator, which is very helpful when moving in and out. Fair warning — the elevator breaks down quite frequently, so try to pick a lower floor if you don’t want to walk up and down five flights of stairs while it is being fixed.
I was really nervous about living in Sheldon Court because I couldn’t find much information about it before move-in, and I didn’t know anyone who was living in the building. But now that I’m here, I realize that I misjudged it.
If you get put into Sheldon Court next year against your request, don’t freak out. Or, if you get to self-select a dorm, take a second to consider Sheldon Court before choosing to live on West Campus, where you will have to hike up Mount Everest a few times a day while I cruise past you on the bus.
Jeanelle Wu is a jkw98 is a sophomore in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. She can be reached at jkw98@cornell.edu.
