Chaos rules in college dorm contest

Take a look at Melinda Fant's decorating flair

(CNN) -- What's the word that best describes Melinda Fant's dorm? "Chaotic" comes to mind -- to the eye, too.

"I literally say, 'If you don't want to suffer from visual overload, then don't come in my room,'" says Fant, a sophomore at Clemson University in South Carolina.

But CNN dared look at the bedlam in her bedroom, and that won the 19-year-old from Union, South Carolina, first prize in CNN's College Week dorm room contest. She simply outdecorated the competition.

Fant's Technicolor pad features Parrothead paraphernalia devoted to Jimmy Buffett, beer cartons doubling as wallpaper, bottle caps affixed to the ceiling and lots of twinkling Christmas lights. Surely, an evergreen tree somewhere is missing its colors.

Fant, who is majoring in park, recreation and tourism management, had her place all decked out on her first night back at school.

"I cannot stand to live in a drab, dry, ugly dorm room," she says.