“Welcome to the Marriott” is what you might encounter upon arrival at your Club Fed dorm.

The minimalist decor of your open space room is akin to your Freshman year Ivy League college dorm which your parents had the privilege of paying a healthy five figures for annually, except your new temporary space will actually be nicer and cleaner.

You have a desk and chair, which will also probably get more use than your first year of college, with a bulletin board and light.  A few feet away you will have your wardrobe in which you will house all of your possessions as well as a large storage bin that you can put under your bed.

You will be supplied with white cotton sheets and thick gray military issue gray blankets.  On the positive side you don’t have to worry about cleaning or soiling them, like your 300 plus thread count Pratesi linens at home, so lather up those legs and feet with Lubriderm from Fedmart before sleeping.

Your room will be inspected weekly for cleanliness, and you will have a fresh set of linens, another two aspects of life at Club Fed that are most likely better than the state of your Freshman year dorm, unless Mom lived close by!

Speaking of cleanliness, you will be happy to hear that you have complete privacy in the bathrooms and showers.  Like College, at the end of the hallway you have two large rooms of showers (individual showers with doors and hooks for your robe/clothes) and bathrooms (individual stalls).  These are open 24/7 for your convenience.

In addition to these facilities there is ample primping space available.  Some facilities have hair rooms with blow dryers, curling irons, flat irons and hair sinks for the women (and some WCC Men).

You will also have abundant sunlight when in your dorm, as there are large windows in the rooms (remember, you are at Camp where it is civilized, bars are for zoos) to better assist you when applying your facial products or styling your hair.

Also, like the Marriott, you will have large ice machines and hot water dispensers in your dorm.  It’s not Starbucks but you can begin your day with iced coffee and end it with hot chocolate, should you so choose.

Disclaimer…no two Clubs are the same.  There are slight nuances (e.g. Danbury has a salad bar, Alderson does not) based upon how the facility is run.  Many of these are privately run Camps.  Yes, the US Gov’t has outsourced!  Your Camp is paid by Uncle Sam based upon how many days you are there, how many courses you take while on sabbatical, etc.  So if you wonder why someone recommends you take a Beading Class, it’s because they get a fee for it, not because they want you to regress to Kindergarten art class.

If any of you have been watching OITNB in preparation for your journey, you are unnecessarily alarming yourself.  What is portrayed in this fictional show is just that, pure fiction.  You have total privacy when showering or using the facilities.  There are no Caligula inspired evening orgies.  The experience is more akin to a Nursing Home environment (think Scrabble, Card Games and Knitting) than Bieberesque escapades.

What you will need to get accustomed to is the vast amount of time you now have at your disposal.  It’s up to you how to use it, but you will most likely never have an opportunity like this again to be able to do whatever you want for yourself.

WCCs are used to juggling a myriad of responsibilities and working (and playing) hard.  There are no  early morning or late evening conference calls to speak with your International counterparts, there are no fund raising events to attend in the evening nor any weekend sports tournaments that require your attention.

How you choose to spend your time is completely up to you, because as a WCC you will not be participating in the GED courses nor the Resume Writing classes offered to assist other Campers on re-entering the world post Camp (been there done that).

The philanthropic side of you will want to assist with tutoring those less fortunate which can be very rewarding, but this still leaves you with a tremendous amount of time to spend on yourself.  You can take this time to grow spiritually (hello Deepak Chopra), expand mentally (900 page biography…bring it on) and tighten physically (Boot Camp has a whole new meaning at Club Fed).

Take it from WCC Hall of Famer Martha Stewart:

“When I was incarcerated at Alderson in West Virginia for a five month term, they had a ceramics class and in the ceramics class was a storage warehouse room when I found all of the molds for an entire large nativity scene…and I molded the entire nativity scene.”

Stewart made this nativity scene during her 2004 incarceration at Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia.