I developed my story idea by talking with some freshman I had recently met at the University of Utah. They told me that the dorms are extremely crowded this school year which made me curious as to why. I decided to go online and research exactly why the dorms are so popular now more than ever before.

I located sources by simply researching on google why the dorms are so attractive to students. Some articles discussed the social attraction and the tradition of living on campus during freshman year, while many articles said it is because living on campus can result in a higher GPA for students.

They were the best sources for my story because they lead me to the correlation between high GPA and living on campus, which became the focus of my paper. I had a wide variety of articles that supported my topic which significantly helped my paper.

The obstacle I encountered involved difficulty finding data that reflected poorly on high GPA and students living on campus. I wanted to find some data arguing against living on campus resulting in high GPA since a couple people I had interviewed did/do not enjoy living in the dorms at the U. I addressed this dilemma by including the quotes from the people I had interviewed with negative comments without including data to support their claims.

The information came together very well, since each source supported each other. I decided my focus by figuring out what each article I was reading had in common, which is that students who live on campus do have higher GPAs than students who do not live on campus. Since there were so many supporting articles, it made my decision to discuss the correlation much easier.

The writing process was difficult yet rewarding because I struggled to find some data but since I gathered so much information, I learned a lot about living on campus and the effects it has on students.

One detail that I did not include in my blog is that a huge factor of living in the dorms is the lack of sleep many students experience. Lack of sleep can lead to numerous health issues including a higher chance of getting sick. I was sick multiple times when I lived in the dorms, which made it difficult to stay on top of my academics. I would have included this in my story, however it was not entirely on topic.

Overall, the conclusion that living in the dorms results in a high GPA surprised me because living in the dorms comes with a lot of distractions that can lead to abandonment of academic responsibilities. However, many studies were done to determine whether there is a correlation and many results proved a positive correlation between living on campus and obtaining a high GPA.