Moving away from home for the first time is a completely different lifestyle. It has various perks such as no curfew and no need to please your parents by making your bed every morning, although you sacrifice this all to live in a very small dorm room sharing many communal resources.
1. Having a complete stranger as your new roommate
Whether you chose your roommate through social media or picked each other randomly you have to be ready to expect the worst and hope for the best. Your roommate may end up being your best friend, or they may end up being your polar opposite. Thankfully, there are so many different things to do and places to be on campus that you only spend a significant amount of time in your room when you sleep.
2. Having to share communal bathrooms with 30 other people
Shower shoes, dirty toothpaste in the sink and hair all over the shower walls. Get used to it... Sharing a communal living space with a bunch of other people gets dirty really quickly. This also means, no more signing in the showe! Luckily, at most colleges, you only have to live in the dorms your freshman year.
3. The laundry room
You have probably never noticed how long it takes to do your laundry, until the first week of school when you realize you have no clean clothes left. The process itself takes around 3 hours, which is very hard to fit into your busy school schedule. You always have the thought in the back of your mind, that when you go back to check if your clothes are dry, someone stole them. And yes, unfortunately, that happens often.
4. FOMO
Whether it's a Wednesday night or a Friday night, there is always something going on. You have got to learn how to prioritize your studies and get over the fear of missing out.
5. Your UberEATS and Postmates bill
Dining hall food can get boring extremely quickly, so you will often find yourself ordering food from restaurants in the area at all hours of the day. It will not be until you receive your monthly bank statement when you regret the amount of food you ordered and how often.
