Foreign students and students from mainland alike find themselves with limited living options when they first arrive to Jeju: either they live in one of the three different dormitories available on campus or they rent a place. The latter option is difficult for students with limited income options, as rental prices are increasing day by day.

So, on one hand, the number of people trying to get into the dormitories have increased exponentially; yet on the other, due to the construction of a new dormitory building – that started last year – the number of rooms available have decreased.

This is one of the many issues that dormitories in our school have faced through these past months. For instance, in dormitory #6, fire alarms trigger at any given time without any actual threat of a fire.

These incidents were speculated to be caused by students smoking in their rooms, but the administration has admitted that these are caused by an outdated alarm system. The worst part is that the alarm was usually triggered at night – between 12am to 7am – which has made students feel uneasy while sleeping at night. The thin walls that surround the rooms are not sound proof, so if the students have already had trouble listening to different sounds at night, the alarms are not helping either.

Another controversy has been the wild cats that live around the dormitory buildings. Many students – mockingly referred in Korean social media as “cat moms” – give food to these animals, play with them, and put beds inside the dormitory buildings for them to sleep in.

But another group of students have been against these activities, because they point out that they are unhealthy and can put a threat to students lives, especially those who have cat allergies. The administration has asked the students to refrain from touching the cats and letting them enter the dormitories and the convenience store, yet the problem still persists.

Finally, the most recent problem has been a shortage of water supply in dormitory #4 caused by the amount of available water in the water tanks. For around two weeks, students were unable to use the water for showering and other purposes, causing them to question whether or not the new dormitory #7 in construction is going to have the same issues.