The Challenges of Living in Dormitories Experienced by Female Students of State Universities Locating in Tehran

College years are a golden time in any person’s life, and campus life is an important stage in the road to obtaining a university degree.  Greater Tehran is home to most prestigious universities and colleges in the country, so there is fierce competition to get accepted in these universities. If someone is admitted to a Tehran-based university, they practically begin a new chapter in their campus life.  The present research delves deep into the challenges and difficulties of the campus life among female students of a number of Tehran’s universities.  An attempt has been made to give some insight into the somewhat vague concept of female students living on the campus.  Campuses set strict rules for daily life of female students, directly wielded by policy-making bodies in higher echelons in university administration. An in-depth qualitative content analysis of data collected by a semi-structured questionnaire filled in by 12 female students aged 21-41 attempted to make an understanding of the challenges of living on the campus.  The analysis provided 10 main categories of difficulties. Decline of privacy, paucity of leisure time, non-existence of free will, re-imposition of stereotype gender roles, and law as the master signifier stand out among other categories.