Allison Halff, Bwog’s Argentina correspondent, was kind enough — through the magic of El Internet — to give us Wien sufferers a quick lecture on the wonders of Watt.

When my roommate and I got an exceptionally good lottery number at the end of freshman year, the first dorm we toured was Watt. After walking through the building and talking our way into several students’ rooms, we exited the dorm positively giddy with delight, muttering incoherently about marble staircases and laundry on every floor. We did secure a room in Watt for sophomore year, and it was everything we had hoped for and more.

Watt has three different types of rooms: studio doubles, which go to juniors and occasionally a few lucky sophomores, consist of one double room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Studio singles are comprised of one single room (scarcely smaller than most of the doubles), a kitchen, and a bathroom. Finally, walk-through doubles have two rooms that like Woodbridge can either be used as separate bedrooms or one shared bedroom and one living area, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Anyone who gets the opportunity to live in a walk-through or studio single should absolutely do so. The studio doubles are also great, unless your main priority is to have a lot of space to throw parties, in which case you might prefer one of the huge McBain walk-throughs.

Watt is located on 113^th between Broadway and Amsterdam, almost directly across from McBain. Meaning that while Watt does not have either a computer lab or a gym, they are both only a short walk away. No Watt rooms feature great views, and the a, b, and c lines’ windows face the backyard of frat row. The noise is occasionally irritating, but, because this is Columbia, the parties are rarely very long or very raucous. I would recommend buying curtains, however. Rather than avoiding the back of the building, I would recommend steering clear of the lobby, which does get noisy and occasionally features loud workman yelling on the way down to the basement at ung-dly hours of the morning. Incidentally, residents must venture down into the basement to dispose of all trash bags and can only do so via the creaky elevator, which is a decidedly unpleasant experience. Columbia personnel do not clean bathrooms and kitchens, but they do drop off supplies of toilet paper.

Last year, one year older and almost 2,000 points lower, my roommate and I were tragically denied re-entry into Watt and forced to tour Wien instead of our former haven. This exodus has only made me further appreciate Watt, a building not without flaws, but with way more benefits.