Fresno State Student Housing

It is what you make of it. End of story. Yes it's expensive, but if you can afford it and make the best of it, you'll come out with fond and positive memories of Fresno State Student Housing (a.k.a. University Courtyard when I lived there)nnA lot of the poorer reviews of Fresno State's student housing are made by freshmen or transfer students who have never lived outside the four walls they share with their family, and aren't exactly apt to dealing with roommates. Albeit, to that point, the roommate pairing is awful. Of the four semesters I lived here, I only had a roommate I could tolerate for one (the very last semester before I graduated...!)nnFacilities:nYes, these are older facilities. But the fact is they are maintained in a good state: the air conditioning and heaters work, I had never seen any of the buildings leaking during rain, and the amenities are pretty nice. There's a certain amount of peace of mind living on campus because, although it isn't gated, there's generally a campus police officer patrolling/parked in the area of the dorms. The gym equipment is older but in good, working order. They recently renovated the pool and patio areas which now look AMAZING. The volleyball and horseshoe pit area, along with the grassy areas throughout the facility, make it very welcoming to students who enjoy being outside.nnThe suites are nice for extremely social people, and have better A/C and heater controls, but in my opinion were the lesser of the two facilities. You're far more likely to be kept up all night by parties and your upstairs neighbors making insane noise, but hey- it's up to you. Just don't blame campus housing for your poor grades and never sleeping because you chose to live in a louder, more community based environment.nnThe community style is nice in my opinion, BUT- and pay attention to this- it really depends on the kind of person you are. I didn't live in community style until I was a senior. These are your traditional 2-to-a-room dorms with community bathrooms. A few of these rooms can be rented out for yourself alone. I knew what my study habits were, and I knew what my peeves were with people, so I elected to put in a preference for Homan Hall (the only 'quiet' building for community style). The result were very keep-to-yourself people which meant less noise, cleaner community bathrooms and a better experience for the studious person who enjoys a full night's sleep. If you pick Graves Hall, you're likely to have a bit more noise, and the possibility of sharing your room with an exchange student. Neat experience if you're into it, but it wasn't really something I wanted to try. Baker Hall... oh Baker Hall... if you like loud, trashy music, frat boys stumbling in drunk at all hours of the night, and stoners, this hall is for you!nnParking is fine, never had an issue and campus PD is pretty quick to pick up anyone snooping around in that parking lot. You still have to pay regular parking fees and fight for spots; there's no designated parking for dorm students (at least while I lived there).nnFood:nYes it's expensive, but just buckle down and buy the platinum meal plan. It's really nice to be able to go and get however much or little food you want whenever you get the whim while the dining hall is open. Generally the food quality falls between mediocre and good. The made to order omelet station, however, is to die for. Plus, the dining hall does really neat cultural/holiday food events (i.e. Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinner, Cinco de Mayo, etc.). It's the dining hall at a California State University campus, most of the people here complaining about it are for some reason thinking they're going to get food from one of UCLA's premier dorm food courts. No. You're going to get enough decent quality food and a fair amount of options to keep you happy. If you want fine dining, quit whining and fork out the money to go eat at Cheesecake Factory down the street.nn5 stars overall, subtract one star for my iffy experience when I was a freshman in college.

For first year students it’s fine. But paying 700 per month to share a room, share a bathroom, not have a kitchen, and have outdated and uncomfortable furniture is just rediculous when you can comfortably live in an apartment that’s nicely furnished, have your own room, own bathroom, and a kitchen for over $100 less than university courtyard. Would not recommend.

Ok I chose to do dorms for my first year at Fresno state. The maintence here is horrible. We had AC out for a whole week and hot water not working for 4 days. The maintence people are rude and just barge in your room and don’t even wear uniforms or anything so it is kinda scary for a random person to walk into your room. These incidents are just from in my first fall semester so far.

I personally found the on-campus housing at Fresno State to not be worth it for me, I'd rather compute. Some but not all of the housing staff is nice when asking questions. Some of the questions I had, they had to ask multiple different people before I got an answer and other times they didn't even give me an actual answer. I didn't feel safe all the time because other students would be loud and rowdy at night - I even had an experience where they were banging on the door and even posed as maintenance and opened the door even though it shouldn't have been possible. The food at the dining hall wasn't worth the price in my opinion and sometimes made me not feel good, personally. However, what I really didn't like was that they did nothing to help when I was having problems with my roommate with her being hostile towards me and even cursing me out like when I asked her to stop slamming the door closed all the time. The RA didn't really do anything, nor did I see him around throughout the school year.

Have lived here for 1 year and 3 months now, a great community with a friendly staff.nnThe only major flaw is their laundry system. The washers only put out cold water and only one of the dryer's half works. Plus they require quarters and yet give no way of breaking change which requires me to drive around on laundry day asking random business's to break my bills.