Student dormitories play a crucial role in shaping students' academic, social, and psychological experiences. Students’ attitudes toward dormitory life directly influence their academic performance, mental health, and overall satisfaction. Given the growing student population and the importance of improving dormitory living conditions, this study aims to analyze students' perceptions and emotions about dormitory life based on real-world data collected from the social media platform X. We were specifically interested in knowing the importance of gender in shaping students’ perceptions of dormitory life. This research employed a data-driven approach based on content analysis of 3,046 Persian-language posts related to students’ dormitory experiences shared on platform X over two years. After data preprocessing—including removing irrelevant information, text normalization, and tokenization—sentiment analysis was conducted using the pre-trained model "HooshvareLab/bert-fa-base-uncased-sentiment-deepsentipers-multi." To identify semantic patterns, K-Means clustering was applied, with the optimal number of clusters determined using the Elbow Method, Silhouette Analysis, and Davies-Bouldin and Calinski-Harabasz indices. Data analysis revealed that male/female perceptions of dormitory life might be affected by different factors. Positive sentiments reflected strong friendships, social support, and fond memories of shared experiences, while negative emotions were associated with inadequate facilities, lack of privacy, cultural conflicts, and poor dormitory management. The clustering process identified eight meaningful clusters representing various aspects and emotions of dormitory life. Each cluster highlighted specific experiences, from social bonding and personal growth to frustration with dormitory policies and infrastructure shortcomings. The findings underscore the importance of improving dormitory infrastructure, ensuring transparent and efficient management, fostering social interactions, and enhancing security measures. Data-driven policy development can reduce current issues and increase student satisfaction. We found that gender is a crucial factor shaping student’s perception of dormitory life.