Not all dorm-bound University first-year students live a life of boredom and dreariness.

The 11th and 12th floors of Middlebrook Hall are the site of the West Bank Arts House, an artist community of students interested in music, dance, theater and visual arts.

The arts house showcased its first student collaboration this past Tuesday at the Regis Art Center.

“First Year in Flux” allowed first-year student Helen Franzen a chance to exhibit her larger-than-life portrait paintings.

Franzen, who will pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis on painting, said she enjoys the arts house community because it allows her access to artistic performances.

Through the year arts house community advisers Anthony Brown and Eileen May help fund and organize resident trips to plays, concerts and operas.

“I have actually learned a lot of things about art, dance and music through discussion and dialogue with the students that I am not familiar with,” Brown, a junior in the theater department and beat-boxer extraordinaire, said.

Matt Miller, a first-year music student, also knows the direct benefits of living in a community like this one.

Chock full of musicians and instrumental tinkers, the arts house not only affords Miller opportunities to play with other musicians, but a chance to get his schoolwork done.

“You get to hang out with all the music majors. Since we are always taking the same classes at the same time, we can help each other out with our homework and theory,” Miller said, after performing a solo classical piece on his upright bass.

Dorm life, thanks to the West Bank Arts House, might never be the same drudgery.