So you’re stuck in that crappy two-year limbo between cushy first-year housing and coveted senior selections. Imagine a life in...

Furnald

Said to be the dorm of the lucky sophomores with good lottery numbers, Furnald is the only South Field dorm outside the LLC that houses sophomores. Located two minutes away from the essentials (Butler Library, Lerner Hall, 116th Street subway, Morton Williams), Furnald is one of the cleanest and most convenient buildings you could live in. Its reputation as the quiet first-year dorm makes it perfect for lucky sophomores who appreciate large single rooms and long, private study hours. Although the elevator does not reach the 10th floor, the view is still worth it. And Furnald has its other perks—cozy large kitchens on each floor are an ideal space to hold dinner parties with close friends, and the main lobby is perfect for occasional a cappella concerts. With its open structure and acoustics, the first-floor lounge can turn into a performance room with sofas arranged around the singers. On such occasions, it’s hard for you to resist stopping, listening to the music, and spending a merry five minutes in good company on a Friday before midterm week.

Hartley

You applied for special housing, you are happy with your single, and you share a suite with friends you more or less know. The good news about Hartley is that you can wake up at 8:50 and still make the 9 a.m. class in most buildings, except Pupin and Mudd. Hamilton Deli, a crucial element in the life of any exam-stricken Columbia student, is right across the street—you can basically smell the heroes from your dorm window. Just make sure you look both ways when you cross Amsterdam at 5 a.m. Hartley’s quiet skylounge is an underrated and extremely useful place to hide and study. The only downside seems to be that individual groups, such as athletes, tend to cluster and interact little with each other. Residents on one floor sometimes don’t even know the people below them, and parties are scarce in a dorm where students place high stakes on comfortable privacy and quiet studying.

Wien

Although not on South Field, Wien’s appeal is its proximity to all the wonderful hot spots on Amsterdam Avenue—HamDel and Thai Market first come to mind, at least partially making up for the closing of the Wien food court earlier this year. One detail to keep in mind is that each room in Wien has a sink, which can make all the difference during your morning waking process. Housing mainly juniors, Wien’s bathrooms alternate between gender on each floor. When privacy issues arose regarding coed bathrooms, segregation occurred, causing the informal emergence of separate floors for men and women. Nevertheless, floor unity does exist because groups of friends tend to all pick the same floor. The Super Bowl party is rumored to be among the best every year, and nostalgic juniors call Wien “a less homey version of John Jay.”

Claremont

Located behind the Barnard campus, 47 Claremont is about six to seven minutes away from the 116th Street gates by foot. Part of a quiet residential area, it has the feel of an apartment building and is not near any notable stores or restaurants. Of all the options, Claremont is the closest you can get to apartment-style housing. The suites are small and don’t have much of a common space, but socializing occurs within them. In general, the building is quiet and inhabited by driven students who appreciate having “their own place” because it’s somewhat nearby, yet far enough to be conveniently isolated from campus, providing an alternative to a more chaotic dorm life. But noise from the Nexus construction site can be annoying, and the wind tunnel on 116th Street is not exactly pleasant on cold winter days.

McBain

For better or worse, McBain is the crowded beehive dorm at 113th Street and Broadway where most sophomores end up. McBain residents are as far from the subway stop as you can get, midway between 110th and 116th Streets. Complaints include a long walk from campus, slanted floors, questionable bathrooms, rooms on lower levels that get no natural light, and the single slowest elevator at Columbia. Yet there’s something special about times when five to six students gather up in a large square double to watch the latest Japanese anime or code the night away for a computer science project. The space seems to be everyone’s—there’s pizza in abundance, and most times it’s hard to determine which room the music is coming from. Koronet and Nussbaum & Wu are a few minutes away, offering even more alternatives to the hyperactive social life of the dorm. “McBain is where it’s at,” residents say. Yes, East Campus usually sets the standard on the party scene, but that’s probably because McBain residents are too busy with drunken circular tricycle races.