The College Dormitory

The institution I will study is the UC Berkeley dormitory. My relationship to the schools’ dorms is that I am a resident there. As a facility for the school’s students to live, the dorm fits into the category of civil society. This year is the third year that I have been living in the dorms. Not only have I resided in the dorms, but I have also worked in the dorms’ judicial board. As a result of my experience, I understand the system and the workings of the dorms. An important social rule that students must follow is quiet hours, which designates that during a time of the day (for example, 11pm to 8am), students should not be making excessive noise that can hinder someone’s sleep or study.

Marx would describe the division of labor in the dorms as one that involves hierarchy among the Residential Assistants and residents. The Residential Assistant (RA) holds a higher position above all the residents. RAs are leaders who have about 60 residents under their care. The job of the RA is to uphold the rules of the dorms while simultaneously building a cohesive social community. Marx would see that some of the RAs approach their job with little understanding of the residents, and through such action, RAs could be seen as generating class division between themselves and the residents. By misusing their power, RAs could be exploiting their residents. However, RAs can give fair treatment to their residents and this would avoid antagonism between the RAs and the residents.