Oh, what a shock it was when I entered my dorm room for the first time: a room in a ten-person shared flat in the dorm that was so ugly that I was speechless.

A longish chamber with chunky wooden furniture, ash-grey linoleum floors and a fluorescent ceiling light that made everything so bright and cold it felt like I was in a prison movie.

In these films, the bright light serves to establish the truth – at least aesthetically.

If you're illuminated like the man in the moon, it's hard to hide something.

The neon light on the ceiling made my truth perfectly clear: young and poor, but eager to go to university.

The room in the dormitory should get me through my studies as cheaply as possible.

It did, and in the end I stayed in the dorm for five years.

Except for the first few days, I never switched on the ceiling light again, but replaced it with a floor lamp.

I didn't need a daily statement of the truth of my life after all.

The rest didn't matter.

My motto became: I can live better when I'm old!

Although only just under every tenth student in Germany lives in a hall of residence, the other 90 percent don't necessarily have it nicer either.

Every third student lives in a shared apartment.

What sounds cozy often turns out to be an apartment battery in which every broom closet is rented out in order to share the high rental costs.

The only condition for the room in a shared apartment: it must have a window.

For real!

A real door is only optional.

I know flat-sharing communities where some poor bastards only have a sliding door made of thin glass that doesn't even reach to the floor.

Then there's pizza straight out of the pan

These are all luxury problems, other students would now counter.

Around 20 percent of the students live alone, but not all of them have enough money for an apartment in which you can walk more than three steps.

Many resort to so-called studio apartments, which are dimensioned in such a way that there would be problems with animal welfare if a hamster moved in there.

If you're not careful, you'll stumble off the bed into the stove and then fall backwards into the toilet.

Ouch!

In addition to the cramped conditions, the location speaks for itself.

The student apartments are often on the top floor or ground floor, sometimes in the basement.

In other words, wherever older tenants tend to be reluctant to live.

We students are marginalized on the housing market, we live in above-average and ugly conditions.

I could complain and quack about that now, but I don't do that.

Because it's nothing new, it's been part of being a student for a long time.

That creates identity, and not in the worst sense.

We make a virtue out of necessity, we have declared improvised living to be a popular student sport.

True to the motto: If we live ugly, then we make it a lifestyle.

The oven is broken?

It doesn't matter, then there's pizza out of the pan.

Five forks and eight guests?

Nothing easier than that, you eat in two stages.

And if you don't have a chair, just take a beer crate!

If you have money for beer, you can also buy a chair.

It's not like that.

Saving is not a mere necessity, but above all an exercise in reflection.

Those who sit in the student digs learn to concentrate on the essentials.

We all know: It's not the quality of the sparkling wine that makes the party, but the people around you.

I can't imagine living more honestly than in the dorm room;

life there is hedonistic.

Status symbols count for nothing here, but are exposed for what they are: social knick-knacks.

A designer sofa is useless if you don't have time to sit on it.

A fine meal from the high-end kitchen appliance only becomes a special experience when you can share it with someone.

And what's the use of a state-of-the-art home office if you have a job that doesn't fulfill you?

Sure, I too would like designer furniture, cool pots and expensive scented candles, but that doesn't make life any better if the basics aren't right.

That's what the dorm room teaches us.

My former dorm is the ugliest house I know.

But I had a wonderful time there.

Simply because I had so much desire for life.

I hope that something remains between fifty-hour work week and ETF portfolio of this knowledge.