So you've arrived at UMass Amherst for the semester. Now what? If you're putting down roots, that's okay, but if you have the option of living off-campus now, or down the road, it should definitely be something you give a lot of consideration.
Here's why:
1. SO much more space
When you live in a dorm room, all your stuff is cluttered together under your tiny bed or inside your tiny closet. It's like they expected elves to live in these little tiny rooms that you SHARE with another person!!! If one of you gets sick, it's almost a guarantee the other will get sick. In a dorm, you lack a space to call your own, whereas you get that off campus.
2. You get a real kitchen where you can actually cook
It's snowing, you don't want to leave your room and in a dorm, your only food options are things that can be microwaved. However, when you live in your own apartment off campus, there's no need to leave because you have an actual sized refrigerator, a stove, a microwave, and other appliances. Bring that snow on!
3. You (most likely) have your own room
Once again, a space to call your own. You don't have to worry about being on top of your roommates or getting their sicknesses or even about bringing a boy/girl back to the apartment. You get a lot of freedom in college, but having your own room is a whole new level of freedom.
4. You don't have to share a bathroom with 4+ people.
There's nothing grosser than waking up on a Saturday morning and going to the bathroom and seeing puke in every single stall. There's also nothing worse than running out of toilet paper in all the stalls by Sunday night. Off campus, you typically share your bathroom with TOPS 3 people and it's fairly simple to figure out which one of you made the bathroom gross and have them clean it up. Most of the time, though, the bathroom will stay WAY cleaner way longer and you don't have to worry about things like that. You also don't have to wear shower shoes, which is a huge plus.
5. There's no RAs
Not saying there's absolutely no form of authority, because there absolutely is and landlords can be pretty scary, but they're not going to be breathing down your neck. You don't have to worry about if your music is playing in your room that you're going to get a noise complaint, you don't have to worry about having a singular candle lit and getting written up and most importantly, you don't have to worry about dorm inspections when you go home for a break. Leave your string lights up, buy an octopus lamp, light some candles, because you can!
6. Kiss the dust goodbye
Let's be real, you can dust your dorm room every single day and somehow it'll still get dusty in two minutes. There's just no escaping it. However, when you're off campus, there's less people, less bacteria in the air, and somehow, a significant amount of less dust. It really is a beautiful thing, especially if you're allergic or just hate how dust looks.
7. You control the temperature of your own apartment
In my particular apartment, we have central air for air conditioning and heating. This is not the case for all apartments, but for most, there's a control for the heat in the apartment. No more sweating/freezing your ass off in your irregular temperature dorm room! No longer will there be a need for you to open your window when it's snowing because the heat is beyond blaring and unbearable in your room. You can simply go to the thermostat and change it yourself!
8. You have your own wifi
Sometimes on campus, the wifi will go out and sometimes, professors don't really care and still expect you to get your assignments turned in electronically and on time. Instead of stressing over eduroam, simply go home and log into your own wifi. It'll also usually be faster than the schools network, considering there will be just your apartment-mates on it rather than about 22,000 students.
9. You don't have to deal with people stealing/touching your clothes in the laundry
In my building, each apartment has their own washer/dryer unit. In other apartments, there's a centralized spot for people to do their laundry, but there's always more than 1 machine there. You won't have to worry about someone touching your laundry and moving your wet clothes out of the washing machine just to sit on top. You also probably will lose a significant amount of less socks this way too. I don't like my stuff being touched, especially by a stranger on my "clean" clothes.
10. You can move in/out whenever your lease starts/ends
No longer will you have to deal with the MINIMAL hour of traffic that accumulates on route 9 when trying to move into a dorm. No longer will you be told you only have 30 minutes to move all your stuff for the entire year into you're tiny dorm room that's on the 20th floor of a tower. The stress of moving in/out to me, was absolutely unbearable and way too much. Living off campus, as long as your lease has started, you can move in whenever you want over the summer and move out whenever you want at the end of your lease. Moving in and out is so much more convenient and almost stress free.
Living off campus is one of the best decisions I have made during my time at UMass. However, sometimes it's not for everyone. I highly recommend giving it a shot!
