about the bathrooms... the ones where i lived were all co-ed. there was a vote every year on every floor to "sex" the bathrooms, but every year it was overwhelmingly decided to leave them co-ed. there was, however, a one-person bathroom on each floor for those who were uncomfortable with the idea (it was originally designed as a handicapped bathroom. the dorm itself was an all-male dorm when it was first built).
the idea seems really weird at first, but basically you come to realize that stalls (toilet or shower) are private. it doesn't matter if the person in the next one is male or female. you both just want your privacy. so, it works out.
of course, i have heard of a couple of cases where there was more than one person using the same shower stall at the same time, but i don't know if those are just rumors. i try not to think about it.
the situation is not unique to that dorm or even to that school. my oldest sister went to a different school around 1990. she had the same situation (coed dorm, coed bathrooms).
as for the beds, there is a way to do it if you have a large enough room and are willing to make a few sacrifices. the room is yours. as long as you leave it in the same condition you found it (or get approval for whatever changes you make), you can do what you want with the furniture.
when my sister went to a different dorm at the same school, she ended up with a room that was about the size of a small walk-in closet. she literally couldn't keep all the funiture in the room and still have enough space to close the door. so, she put the dresser out into the hall (that dorm had a suite arrangement, i think, so there wasn't too much of a security problem with that) and replaced it with a smaller one we bought at ikea.
at my own school, i had a couple of friends down the hall who were very close. i met them when i was a freshman and they were juniors. at the time, they were acting like any old married couple. that sort of old comfortable relationship where the basics are secured and you've long moved on from the tentative stages of dating and learning boundaries and moving boundaries... although i later found out they'd only met during their own freshman year, i could have sworn they'd been married for years. they even had some of the typical old married couple arguments.
so, they each had a single room, but one of those rooms was pretty much just used for storage. that arrangement was formalized the next year, and later that year, they got engaged. this surprised no one (actually, his comment when he told me was something like, "with graduation coming up, we thought we might as well make it official"). what did surprise some people, however, was that his mother, as an engagement gift, bought them a queen size bed.
they moved the old bed out of the room, rearranged the furniture to allow the space (in a smaller room, you'd probably have to get rid of some furniture... a dresser or a desk or something), and had a queen size bed in a college dorm room.
so, yes. it can be done if you're willing to pay for it. just not through official channels.
Paul
