Some people love living in the dorms at college, and think it gives them “the full college experience,” but personally, after living on campus for a year I could not be happier to be living on my own.
1. No Communal Bathrooms
When you live off campus, it’s typically in an apartment or house and one of the best features is not having to share a bathroom with people other than your roommates.
2. No Supervision
Quiet hours? What are those? You can stay up as late as you want with your roomies blasting music and having the TVs up as loud as it can go and not have to worry about an RA knocking on the door. Also, you don’t have to try to hide your alcohol bottles in the ceiling tiles and can have as many extension cords as you’d like.
3. No Meal Plan
You never have to eat dining hall food—unless you want to. Sure, my roommates and I do our fair share of sneaking into the dining hall when we’re too lazy to actually make food ourselves; but not being required to get the majority of your meals there is amazing. You get to shop for your own stuff and shape your diet around what you want, and not what’s being served by kids in visors who are just as miserable with their jobs as you are to be eating the food.
4. You Don’t Have to go Home for Breaks
Don’t feel like being bored out of your mind in your hometown for the entire month of Christmas break? You don’t have to! Unlike the dorms, you don’t need verification like sports or winter courses to stay at school, because your apartment is yours for as long as your lease lasts. And you start to get to know the other people that live off campus, because you guys are the only ones around when everyone else leaves.
5. Learning Responsibility
Living on your own teaches you how the rest of your life is going to be. You learn how to pay rent and utility bills. You learn how to do your own laundry. You figure out how to make your own doctor’s appointments. You learn how to make your own food and cook for yourself. You learn how to work to pay for these things and learn how to live with other people.
Living off campus and in my own place was definitely one of the best decisions I could have ever made as a college student. I have learned independence and how to take care of myself, and most importantly, it gave me a sense of appreciation for home and all the things my parents did for me that I never imagined having to take care of by myself.
