The Daily Gamecock

Issue date: 2/15/08 Section: The Mix

Media Credit: Pailin Wedel / MCT Campus Duke students Ellis Wisely, his girlfriend Allison Elia and Will Harlan listen to music and talk in Wisely's dorm.

We've seen it before. The majority of us have actually experienced it. The first-year dorm life: a period of no personal space, hand-me downs and constant attempts to regain our privacy in any way we could. We grit our teeth and bear it, suck it up and wait until next year when we at least have the option of a different living style. Or at least we did, until Room Renovators came along.

Room Renovators is a contest available for first-year students looking to make over and make up their living arrangements. Available through Gamecock Connection, the new online community for first-year students, Room Renovators is an intercollegiate competition through which participants creatively express why their room is in need of some TLC, preferably in the form of new entertainment equipment and furniture.

The competition gives students three ways to enter. Play an instrument or like to sing? Submit your entry as a song. A Spielberg in the making can create a movie explaining exactly why pizza boxes don't hold up as well as tables, or why the TVfrom grandma doesn't stand up to our world of HD broadcasting. Those who are more comfortable just flat-out stating why their room sucks can stick to an essay or compile their rants and quips about their cubicle of a bedroom into a poem or short story.

The grand prize winner in each category receives a flat panel TV, $1000 toward new furniture, $500 toward new clothes, a PlayStation 3, an iPod Touch and a Macbook. First runner-up receives a flat panel TV, second runner-up receives an iPod Touch and the most popular entry as voted by students is given a Nintendo DS.

Students will submit their entries and then be able to vote to see which will be entered as the 10 finalists of each category. Winners are then chosen accordingly.

For a complete list of rules and terms, check out www.gamecockconnection.org/rr. Students must create a Gamecock Connection profile before they are allowed to enter.

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