Ok - title of this post is: Did I miss out.
Well sure, you missed out on an experience, but every one of the posters above who lived in a dorm missed out on an experience as well. They possibly missed meeting a best friend in a carpool. They possibly missed meeting a really great girl in the commuter student lounge. The possibly missed the straight dope for years because they were too busy talking in the hallway.
You can’t do everything, you can’t experience everything - it’s impossible.
I can’t speak for the OP, but had I not lived in a dorm, I would have missed out, big time. Hell, I probably would have ended up flunking out and having a nervous breakdown.
I started college as a shy, introverted loner who only thought about physics and math (and Monty Python), and was clueless when it came to the opposite sex. I was also completely unsure of myself and had little confidence about working without direct instruction (as you normally have all the way through high school). Had I been living at home (or living by myself in an apartment), I would have steadily gotten lonelier and more stressed out until I finally collapsed. Instead, living in close quarters with a hundred strangers of all the various sexes forced me out of my shell and got me actually socializing with people. Unlike the movies where it’s nerds vs. jocks vs. preppies vs. artsies, everyone actually got along pretty well regardless of personal interests or backgrounds. I joined clubs, did sports, bitched about my classes to people in similar situations and listened to them bitch about theirs. In the end, four years of dorm living was more educational, and ultimately more directly valuable, than four years of attending lectures and writing papers. If only companies would accept that on a resume.
The bad: going from an only child with my own room to being in a building full of strangers, two of whom were in the same room with me, took getting used to. I didn’t get along great with my freshman roommates (though we tolerated each other for a year).
The good: I met a lot of people that I did get along great with (as did my two roommates) and hung out with them most of the time. We were from different countries, with different religions, different first languages, different majors, and different ideas of what we were going to do after graduation, and I think we all opened up each other’s eyes about a lot of things. The next three years were even better, as I was living with my friends then in a dorm that had its own dining hall (with pretty good food, to be honest), weight room, library, rec center, etc. New things were tried, old things were shared, friends were made, majors were changed, horizons were broadened and virginities were lost. And when it was over, I was ready (well, more ready, anyway) to live on my own as an independent adult.
At UCD, only freshmen live in the dorms. They recently opened some up for older students, but there’s a definite stigma to living in the dorms more than one year. Apartment living has been great too, but lacks the “change of life newness” that dorms have.
I thought it was great, I made a ton of friends I otherwise wouldn’t, who I still see every now and then, had people to complain about classes to and late night adventures to fill the time. My assigned roommate and I will probably be friends for life. We still live together 4 years later, and have occasionally been mistaken for a lesbian couple because we’re so close. I’d have never met her outside the dorms because of my aversion to people from my hometown (she is, but never met her before college) and I would have missed out a lot.
People mentioned its a halfway house to help learn how to live by yourself.
I never had this problem. Maybe its because I was a little older when I moved out (24) and had time to mature on my own, or something else. The first place I lived was a house where I had to share my space with 3 other guys (Granted, individual rooms, but bathroom/etc shared) and I didn’t have any problems. In fact everyone I’ve lived with I’ve got along well.
I do envy the social aspect of dorm life, but I can’t go back and do it that way. The responses people have given obviously just make me regret it even MORE that I didn’t go :o but knowing me had I taken that route I would be whining about regretting having student loans when I only make 20k/year, and how I wished I found a more economical way to graduate college 
You totally missed out. Going away to college is one of the most fantastic things you can do. More than 20 years later, I still miss it at times–not so much the physicall reality (i.e. sleeping in a metal frame single bed in a shared bedroom), but the lifestyle of it–living on a campus, where there is usually some attempt to create an attractive, pedestrian oriented setting. Not having to drive or even take public transit to handle your day-to-day obligations is wonderful, as is being able to just head off to class or the library with the one book you plan to be using, instead of 20 pounds of books that you need for the day. I never even had a backpack at UCSD, though I don’t think they had really caught on by that time anyway.
You missed out, buddy.
Sorry.
As msmith57 said, it’s cramped and you can have roommate issues, but people usually adjust to things pretty well, which means that things tend to go smoothly. People tend to be in and out a lot, so you don’t feel that cramped while you’re actually there.
Sorry dude, you missed out. There is plenty that sucks about dorm life, but it’s an experience that everyone should go though. You can’t really say you went to college if you never woke up in your roomates puke. Whlie we’re on the subject, I think everyone should have worked in fastfood at least once in their life.
Some universities are building “suite-style” dorms to deal with a lot of NinjaChick’s complaints. It’s basically an apartment right on campus. In the dorm I was in for my first year, every suite accommodated 4 students. Everybody had their own bedroom and there was 2 bathrooms. There was also a kitchen and a small living room with cable(a TV was not supplied). You could buy an optional meal plan if you wanted to(this dorm was right next a traditional dorm with a cafeteria) but everyone I knew cooked for themselves(using a loose definition of the word “cooked”). It was more expensive than an ordinary dorm, but it was absolutely worth it for me – I would have gone crazy in a traditional dorm room.
I loved dorm life, but that’s largely because I lived in an amazing dorm. It’s a re-vamped historic old hotel right on the lake. Gorgeous, with huge rooms and private bathrooms. That was pretty awesome.
However, there were downsides. Dorm life means very high distractability. It’s easy to get used to always having something fun going on. I’d start to feel like a loser if I wasn’t always surrounded by people or doing something fun. And my studies suffered for it. It sucks to be sitting at your desk writing a paper through the night when you can hear your dormmates laughing and talking in the next room over.
Some have had these for quite a while. I know that one of the University of Toronto’s campuses (Scarborough?) had these back in the 1970s. Rows of townhouses, if I recall, with four students per unit; each with a bedroom, but sharing a common kitchen, a bathroom or two, and a living/dining area.
Similarly, the University of Alberta built such a structure in the early 1970s. It expanded on the idea of apartment (as opposed to dorm) living on campus, with apartment units similar to what you described, accommodating two or four students. It even has single-person units that function perfectly as bachelor apartments: each is equipped with a four-piece bathroom, a stove and fridge in a tiny kitchen, and enough room for a bed, desk, and a few other things.
So yes, they’re out there, but they seem to be rare. Nice to hear the idea is catching on, however.
UCSD’s were like that in my time (late 1970s). The dorms I lived in had 10 people lived in five double rooms surrounding a common suite lounge. Back then, people didn’t usually put TVs in the lounge but many had small ones (usually B&W) in their rooms.
It depends on the school.
Mine was very residence hall based - pretty much everyone lived in a dorm (or one of the officially recognized student housing options) for all years of school. The very, very, very few students who didn’t probably missed out on something because so much was centered around the dorm/living group life.
However, at schools where that’s not true and a large percentage of students don’t live on campus? Probably not.
BTW, Spectre, going to UCSD without a car must’ve been a real workout.
And, in fact, a pretty good idea. Nice way to get some exercise and enjoy a little scenery too, especially if you cut through the Singing Forest to get from your dorm to your class, like I did at a summer program there.