Interns or students coming to Columbia University:

Okay, as a seasoned college student I understand dorm situations are never perfect and that there are a lot of problems student staff has to deal with. It's understandable that things happen. But never in my four years of college have I been treated so rudely, or seen a building with so many maintenance problems.

Things I liked:

1. Location- This place is safe and right next to the one train. It's a short ride to 42nd street station and many other attractions in NYC.

2. Space of the dorms was amazing. I honestly wasn't expecting them to be that big or have two levels. It's nice to have room when sharing a place with 4 other girls.

3. Campus itself is beautiful, wonderful layout and beautiful architecture.

4. A lot of food options around campus, at a good price for NYC.

5. Nice view from 12th floor and close to Central Park.

Things I disliked:

1. Staff was very rude. I get that the staff has a lot of people to deal with through out the day, but every shift I encountered had a bad attitude problem, this is the worst treatment I've ever experienced as a student. My roommates also experienced this problem of constantly being yelled at and always getting attitude from clerks/guards.

2. RA in charge of our hall was very slow to respond to problems or questions my roommates and I had. Also, my roommate and I had some mail coming in the day after turning in the mail key; our RA knew that we did (my other roommate had asked to keep the key until Friday), but we would have to get the key back later instead of giving it back a few days later. I decided to pick up our key, it should have taken five minutes or so to get. I emailed our RA and told her I would come pick it up, in which she replied that she had it. I went to the office she worked. Very rudely, she told me she was busy and made me wait around 15 minutes, just for the key. So I waited, only to discover that she forgot our key at her place. She told me to come back at 2pm. I did, and she left. Told me to come back at 3pm. Complete waste of my time for something that shouldn't have taken more than 30minutes to do total. Took 3 hours total.

3. Washers and Dryers in basement rarely worked. You can ask anyone who used them, they were a hit or miss to use. I probably lost 10$ to those dryers. I had called the second week of my stay to report a problem to housekeeping, they were kind, but the problem was never fixed and to get my money back would have taken 2 weeks. Once, I used two different dryers in one night; they turned on, but my clothes were still soaked when finished and they had to dry in my room.

4. Housing changed locks on door without notifying me or roommates. Apparently, our problem roommate had lost her key and did not tell anyone. Nothing was said from housing, or roommate about the issue. I had to wait an hour to get into my room and figure out what had made housing change locks. Not even an email to to let people know. Then, a week later they changed the locks again for the new semester. they messed up my key and another roommate's keys, so we had to wait another day to get new ones that worked.

5. Bathroom drain was disgusting. We had grey water build up in our tub when taking a shower; I mean up to my ankles of gross. Took two days for maintenance to fix.

Overall, I'm glad to have stayed somewhere that had central air and space between roommates. If you're coming to Columbia in NYC for school or interning, be forewarned that you will not get help for issues, and if you do, expect to wait a long time to get it. Hopefully, you won't experience the things my roommates and I experienced. We all had a share of problems here. It really is a beautiful campus and convenient place to stay, but I would not live in these dorms again.