After a day at the National High School Institute, journalism students had already written several stories and met tight deadlines. The next challenge for the students at the five-week program was facing the dorm showers.

“Some people are just disgusting,” Anna Scalamogna, of Clearwater, Fla., said.

With one to two showers per bathroom and a small number of bathrooms per floor, cherubs had learn to live together and to keep common areas clean. Many cherubs noticed hair in the shower drain and walls, and sinks were also a problem.

“It was nasty to find the sink covered in hair,” Hillevi Gustafson, of Horby, Sweden, said. “There were gobs of hair in the drain.”

The boys’ floor confronted the shower problem on the first night, Alex Jones, of Kansas City, Mo., said.

“The first night, the fourth floor had an unofficial meeting about how to work the showers,” Jones said. “There’s one per bathroom, and I thought that could be a problem. We decided to go with the flow.”

Dealing with the bathrooms was a learning experience, Scalamogna said.

“I learned to tolerate the not-so-attractive qualities of people,” she said. “You have to get over the little stuff and move on. People leave toothpaste in the sink and hair in the shower.”

Jones described the bathrooms as “pungent.”

“People leave their underwear lying around,” he said. “The toilet seats are bad.”

Some of the bathrooms are cleaner than others, Jones said. But the difference was not significant.

“They’re all in their own way disgusting,” he said.

Cherubs also found ways to avoiding the morning rush to shower.

“I try to pick random times when other people aren’t using the showers,” Elise Butler, of White Bear Lake, Minn., said. “You learn the habits of other people on your floor.”

Butler showered at night when the bathrooms were less crowded. And other cherubs tried the same strategy.

“I showered at night,” Jennifer Pritchard, of Cooper City, Fla., said. “There was a better chance of getting a shower and I could take a longer shower. There were only one or two times I had to wait.”

Butler said sharing bathrooms was inconvenient but also provided a preview of college life.

“It’s good preparation for college, when we’ll have to deal with the situation for a longer time,” she said.

“I’ve stayed in a college dorm with a friend before,” Pritchard said. “I’m used to it, but I still don’t like it.”