Being a college student is not easy. Aside from handling your school work and stress, you have to start making adult decisions. One of them being, if you can no longer live with your parents, what are your options? Well, you can either live on campus or live off campus. Easy as that. With that said, you have a 50/50 chance of choosing which is best for you.
While clearly both have pros and cons, as someone who has lived both on and off campus, I can tell you about my experiences. Hopefully this will help you choose which is a better choice for you.
During my freshman year I lived on campus, as it is strongly recommended for a freshman to do. Now, the benefits of living on campus, especially for your first year, is that you truly get a vibe of the college life. Being a new student, you obviously need to adjust to a new environment. What better way to do so than by living in the environment itself? Since you are adjusting to a new environment, you must also make adjustments to your lifestyle. Unless you can truly afford it, you say goodbye to ideal meals. On-campus food does not necessarily knock it out of the ball park, since they have to make more than one meal a day for thousands of students. While living on campus, you also have to accommodate the other residents. If you are a loud person, or enjoy playing loud music, you will have to be considerate for the others living there as well. I definitely felt more limited living on campus. I love my Residential Advisor. She was awesome, but I felt like I couldn't do as much as I wanted to because even though she was a cool person, she still had to enforce the rules in the housing system.
Also, while living on campus, there are more activities to do. The university will provide pool, ping pong, foozball etc., but you have to make sure no one else is using it. But even if it is, you have a community of students at your disposal to hang out with. A majority of my friends during my freshman year were students I met in housing. It is definitely a perk
Living off campus is fun. I definitely feel a lot more free. I have a room to myself. I live with people I choose (in on-campus housing, you may be fortune enough to room with friends. I was, but it does not always necessarily work out that way). I have my own space, and it is very nice. Although I live with friends, I do need my alone time every now and then (I recently found this out about myself). When I lived on campus, we had shared restrooms and showers. Living off campus, you no longer need to worry about sharing these with too many people.
However, living off campus includes bills and rent and providing your own food. You must learn how to manage money in order to pay your bills. You also have to clean up after yourself. And even if you don't, you have to make sure your housemates clean up after themselves, or at least have a schedule to do so. I'm fortunate enough to live with people who clean up after each other. We take turns. Living off campus, you also have to buy supplies for home. Like, what if you want to cook? Unless your landlord is cool enough to provide furniture and cooking appliances, you have to budget for that too.
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They are both fun! You just have to find which is best suited for you. I like them both, but I prefer living off campus because I have my own space when I need it. However, I do miss the community housing on campus offers.
