Foster-Walker (usually called PLEX), is located right in the middle of campus and is the only all-single residence hall on campus. Men and women live in the gender-clustered 582 single rooms, with one bathroom for every four rooms. The first floor of the building has two dining halls and a c-store, and the package centre for South Campus is in the basement.
“If you start with not knowing anyone in your suite, it will stay that way for the whole year. But it's okay because at this point, you have friends and you don't need to feel like you have to socialize with people in your suite. Plex has a dining room, mail room, and laundry, so it’s in a prime location for sure.”
Dana Choi, Weinberg Sophomore:
“It’s in such a great location, they’re all single rooms so you have some privacy, but they also have thin walls so you can hear people across the wall talking on the phone. It’s also a plus that the dining hall, convenience store and mail center is at the same place.”
Lizzy Ju, Medill Sophomore
“It’s fun if you live with friends, and having a single is great. How social it is really depends — it’s fun for me because I live with friends and know a lot of people that live there.”
Shiv Subrahmanian, McCormick Sophomore:
““I know it’s all singles, and I’ve heard it isn’t very social at all, even though I’ve never been in a room before. It seems to be viewed as the last resort for sophomores.””
Jack Pieterse, McCormick freshman
““The location is five stars - it has a gym in front, a library to the side, a package center right below, and two dining halls right down””
Mark Jung, McCormick Freshman
““Plex is a dorm that seems pretty old and run down. It's nice, however, that a lot of sophomores live there, so I can see a good number of my friends when I visit.””
April Chien, Communication sophomore
““Plex seems to be an overall decent dorm. But socially, it seems pretty dead. I’ve heard a lot of opinions of it being completely non-social, and if you’re not in a suite with people you’re close with, it can be not a fun time.””
Upasana Pathak, McCormick freshman
Reporting by Rachel Oh, Justin Curto, Trevor Lystad, Meg Pisarczyk, Robert Bell, Claire Toomey, Alena Prcela, Mia Zanzucchi, Victoria Alfred-Levow, Kate Salvidio, Elly Rivera, Rachel Epstein, Jakob Lazzaro, Yoonjie Park, David Gleisner
Photos by Rachel Oh, Justin Curto, Emma Kumer, Meg Pisarczyk, Virginia Nowakowski, Claire Toomey, Alena Prcela, Victoria Alfred-Levow, Kate Salvidio, Mia Zanzucchi, Elly Rivera, Rachel Epstein, Jakob Lazzaro, Brian Quistberg, Yoonjie Park, David Gleisner
Videos by Mia Zanzucchi, Emma Kumer, Meg Pisarczyk, Virginia Nowakowski, Helen Lee, David Gordon, Jesus Campos, Helen Lee, Elissa Gray, Gabrielle Bienasz, Andy Brown, Elizabeth Guthrie, David Gleisner, Poppy Shen
Editing by Libby Berry, Lila Reynolds, Maxine Whitely, Helen Lee, Virginia Nowakowski, Mia Zanzucchi, Jesus Campos, Isabella Jiao and Rachel Frazin
Design and development by Alex Duner, Tyler Fisher, Hilary Fung, Dan Hill, KK Rebecca Lai, Maxine Whitely, Sheng Wu and Katie Zhu
This project is open source. Check it out on GitHub.
Data provided by Northwestern University Residential Services