As the new school year begins, many people are moving into their very first apartment or house. Free from the restraints of dorm living, living in an apartment for the first time comes with many new experiences that can either make your life easier or make it a lot more difficult. Navigating a new school year is hard enough - but now you have to navigate how to live on your own!

1. You'll learn how to put together furniture.

While dorms lack storage space, they come fully equipped with enough furniture to at least fit most of your stuff. But unless you're paying a bunch of money for a furnished apartment, you have to get your own furniture. If you don't want to pay a ton of money for assembled dressers and bookshelves, you'll find yourself an expert at building in no time.

2. You'll learn how to cook.

Without the comfort of the dining hall and their questionable meatloaf to rely on, planning meals will become a much more important part of your day. While ordering take-out might seem like the easiest solution, expenses can add up quickly. Take the time to learn how to cook rice, pasta, eggs, and other really simple foods. As you get more comfortable in the kitchen, you can mix it up and start learning to cook some real recipes (like chicken and fish). Of course, ramen will always be a staple food for the college student, but it's good to expand your horizons.

3. Your interior decorating skills will thrive.

Now, we've all tested the limits of Res Life and safety checks when they come to your dorm room every semester and make sure you don't have candles or lights hanging from the pipes. But once you live off-campus, your freedom to decorate however you like increases. While some landlords will enforce certain policies and you might continue the use of the beloved Command Strip, normally there's no one checking to make sure your tapestry isn't on the wall and that there are no candles around. Out of the dorm, you can make your room look exactly how you want and it will really begin to feel like home.

4. Your roommates will become your family.

While you may have gotten along really well with your roommate in the dorm, it's also pretty likely that you got randomly placed with someone whom you had nothing in common with. Or maybe you met someone at summer orientation and became instant BFF's, choosing to live with each other only to discover that they don't know what the word "quiet" means. Now that you're in an apartment, you have a lot more control over who your roommates are, and hopefully you don't have to sleep three feet away from them either. As you learn to navigate apartment life and eating meals together, your roommates will quickly begin to feel like your family, in your home away from home.

5. You can finally have a pet.

While some landlords are pretty strict about pets, most of them are way more lenient than Res Life. Even if they don't allow big animals like dogs, you might be able to get away with something small like a rabbit or a lizard. And if you're lucky, maybe you will get to adopt your very own dog or cat for what is likely to be the first time in your life. Pets are a big added responsibility, but the joy that they bring is definitely worth the hassle of feeding them, picking up after them and coming home late from class only to take the dog on a walk.