See Housing in 3-D

College Room Creator provides pre-move-in flexibility

Part of being a new student at GCSU is choosing somewhere to live. Whether it’s the residence halls or The Village, the mystery of what a room will look like still remains mostly unsolved until move-in day.

A unique website called College Room Creator is coming to GCSU and making the move-in process easier whether you are a new student or a returning one.

“College Room Creator is a new system that will allow current and incoming students to look at their room, coordinate with their roommate and design their room everywhere from the way that the furniture is arranged, to the posters on the walls and even the type of bedding that you choose to use,” said Marketing Coordinator for University Housing Cindy McClanahan.

Every year students bring too many or not enough items for their rooms. Like many freshmen, Allie Tressler pre-psychology major struggled during her move-in process.

“I live in Parkhurst (Hall). The problem my roommate and I were having while moving in is that we didn’t know how to arrange our room. We had to rearrange our furniture so many times in order to make our futon fit and to make our (television) visible from our beds and the futon.”

However, problems like Tressler’s will change with College Room Creator.

Evin Winkelman is a senior at GCSU who works as an office assistant at University Housing. Every year before the big move, she picks up the phone to answer the same questions as the year before.

“A lot of students and parents ask for the dimensions of the rooms, the sizes of the beds, the size of the windows and if we think certain furniture will fit in the rooms in both the residence halls and The Village,” Winkelman said. “We also get a lot of questions about how the rooms are set up, what is included, and the prices of each option.”

College Room Creator is not just a website, but a new company altogether. Fresh from the minds of young college graduates, the idea made its way to a conference where the representatives of GCSU took interest.

“You and your roommate will be able to get in there and really be able to collaborate and figure out what you want your room to look like before you even set foot in it,” McClanahan said.

College Room Creator will eliminate all of these questions with just a few clicks. The website will adopt its company’s name and will be available on GCSU’s website within the next few weeks; the website is under its final stages of testing, but Winkelman has already tested the program.

“I have used the College Room Creator several times to answer questions for students and parents. I really think it is a great tool for incoming students to use,” Winkelman said. “My favorite part is that you can rearrange the furniture in the virtual room and also add different types of furniture to see how other furniture will fit.”

Very soon, students will have an new tool that will help them arrange their rooms before setting foot on campus.

“We’re always looking for opportunities to make life easier for our students and their families as they enter the world of Georgia College and we think this is going to be a great step forward for them,” McClanahan said.

Posted by Matt Chambers on Oct 8 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.