So for those of you who don’t already know, I’m a transfer student. I transferred to Ashland University in January of 2012, and although it was tough, I obviously conquered and made it this far. I transferred from a very small, very Catholic school in Steubenville, Ohio. I loved Franciscan University and there were definitely some things I had to get used to here at Ashland. Co-ed dorms being one of them; unlimited meal swipes being another; and visitation hours that everyone complained about being a third. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about the new visitation policy, too, but it was so much worse at Franciscan.

Let’s just take a peek into normal life at FUS. The opposite sex was only allowed in your room during “open hours,” which were, when I was there, Friday from 4 p.m. – 8 p.m. and Sunday 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. When the opposite sex was in your room, the door had to be open all the way and they had to be announced. Such as “Man/Lady in the hall,” just to be sure no one was walking around in a towel.

If you wanted to visit during non-open hours, that was a possibility – if a common room was available. There was a common room on each wing of each floor of each dorm. Common rooms were basically lounges. So if you wanted to hang out with the opposite sex and it wasn’t Friday or Sunday, you could hang out in the common room – a room surrounded by windows, so good luck with privacy.

Quiet hours was another things I had to get used to, or not-so-quiet hours I like to call them. At FUS, quiet hours were announced. Every night. They started at 11 p.m. on the weekdays and midnight on the weekends and lasted until 8 a.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. on weekends. Every night, the R.A. on duty would go to each wing on the floors and say something along the lines of, “It is now quiet hours. Please keep your voices down and your doors shut.” Doors needed to be closed and voices needed to be hushed. How can they enforce that? Oh, they could. Many, many times I was either written up or almost written up for violating quiet hours.

At AU, I don’t even think everyone knows when quiet hours are. They aren’t announced nor enforced.

I’m definitely not saying that this needs to be changed, and I am in no way complaining about these changes. My point is that AU students constantly complain about these “strict rules” at AU. Really? Strict? Please. I would like you to spend an hour at Franciscan.

Don’t even get me started on Nazi hours. Yep, that’s real life. Nazi hours were during exams and were named pretty accurately. Remember 24-hour quiet hours here? Yeah, it’s got nothing on these. Nazi hours were 24 hours and enforced during finals. Voices could not go above a whisper in the halls and bathrooms, and needed to be “hushed” while in your room with the door closed. This was a little ridiculous and everyone on campus hated it.

Like I said, I loved my three semesters at Franciscan. And no, I didn’t transfer because of Nazi hours. (I transferred for the Journalism program, if you must know). But all of this complaining about Eagles’ Nest hours or Convo’s food (I could play Frisbee with my pancakes at Franciscan) or visitation hours or anything else on campus is a little excessive. So Ashland students, next time you really hate not being able to have your boyfriend in your room 24/7, remember that it could be so, so much worse.