Starting sophomore year, I took the job of "Room Assignment Chair." MIT is interesting because it lets each dorms' government decide how students will be assigned rooms for the following year. Some dorms allow a free-for-all based on seniority. Our dorm has a very structured point system with guarantees that you won't get a room worse that the one that you already have. The dorm had existed for two years before I took over as Room Assignment Chair, and neither of the two previous lotteries went smoothly.

I recruited some help for writing the placement algorithm and focused on making it easy for residents to indicate their preferred rooms. I made a website which displayed each floor's floorplan with rooms color coded by occupancy. When you hover over a room, the square footage and other pertinent information were displayed. Residents then dragged rooms to the right to construct a list of preferred rooms. After placement, residents were automatically emailed with their assignments.

I'm happy to say that this system is still in use today!