The Hyatt: A Transfer Bubble

BU’s unique approach to housing transfer students 

by Lulu Schloss

Photo by Quinn Bryant

Nestled in Cambridge, in between Harvard and MIT, you will find a large modern hotel called the Hyatt Regency Boston / Cambridge. Most students at Boston University don’t know that this is a makeshift dorm. To most, this looks like a normal commercial hotel, but to me, I see my home. When I first received my housing as a new transfer student, I freaked out seeing that they had placed me in a hotel. Not only was living in a hotel a strange concept to wrap my head around, but the hotel was across the river from the BU campus. I was so worried about feeling isolated away from school and having no one to interact with. This couldn't have been further from the truth.

When I reached out to my roommate and other transfers I had been in contact with, I found that almost everyone had been placed in the Hyatt as well. This calmed some of my anxiety, but I still worried about the distance from campus. I accepted my fate and knew all I could do was wait and see how it was once I moved in. 

Once I arrived at the Hyatt in August, I was taken aback by how nice it was. The lobby is huge with many places for students to study and socialize, with a modern open layout where you can look up from the lobby and see all the floors. A hometown friend of mine joked, “Lulu lives in Vegas!” when she came to visit. Our rooms are incredibly spacious, with an exceptionally nice bathroom, a large TV, and a gorgeous view of Boston. The hotel makes a great effort to make us feel welcome, and BU housing offers services that help us feel more connected to campus. We have a Hyatt shuttle that brings us from the hotel to Warren Towers and GSU. On the snow days we’ve had, the hotel has provided us with meals to make up for the shuttle not running. This type of effort makes us feel appreciated and not forgotten. 

Living in the Hyatt created a little community for us transfers that we may not have found anywhere else. Being in one “dorm” with all new students provided us with an experience that other transfers placed in random dorms don’t have. The first couple of weeks of school felt like freshman year all over again; everyone was so excited to meet new people, and we had a huge pool of them at our disposal. I have met the majority of my best friends through living at the Hyatt, and I am forever grateful for the opportunity I was given. This is a perfect example of how something you expected the worst of can turn into the best outcome. We had to exchange being isolated away from campus for a wonderful community of people going through the same transition.