I'm not sure what it's like at other schools, but if you're a Kent State student, you spend the first couple years in the dorms. You get placed with a random roommate, or placed with a friend, if you're lucky, and begin your college experience. Being away from home is intimidating, and you're just getting your footing. Your RA is down the hall, acting as a surrogate parent, and your meal plan is burning a hole in your pocket. You still have the warm blanket of your parents paying for your food and housing (I'm not saying this is everyone, as some people are not as fortunate. I am speaking from my own experience.)
After a while, hub food starts to leave an unsavory taste on your tongue, and the late nights your roommate stays up studying start to get to you. At last, freshman year is over, and you have done your time. You now have the option of saying "bye bye" to the dorms and moving into off-campus housing. The dorms are comfortable and familiar, but they are not much different from living at home. College is the time to explore, learn about ourselves, and transition into adulthood. It's important that we graduate from college ready to take on the real world and the real-life responsibilities that accompany it. Here's why should move out of the dorms and into off-campus housing before you graduate.
Learn To Cook
Don't cry because your meal plan is gone, smile because you can eat real meals. Learning to cook is a skill important to your survival after you graduate. Wouldn't you rather have a belly filled with grilled chicken, sweet potatoes and delicious roasted vegetables than a bowl of cereal? I know I would. Use this time to utilize your parents; have them teach you to make your favorite home-cooked meals and take that knowledge with you into your adult life. Buy a crockpot! Learn what it means to have a real kitchen with all the trimmings, like pots and pans, and get familiar with it all. Use that dorm-outlawed hot plate all you want! Eat well, live well.
Roommates
Living in the dorms is a whole different animal from living in off-campus housing. When you are in close quarters with someone, it doesn't really give them the opportunity NOT to annoy you, if that makes sense? When you move into a place with your own room and your own space, people are a lot more tolerable. That being said, you also tend to notice the things that can become a real problem: not cleaning up after themselves, leaving hair in the shower, turning the heat up too high, having loud sex, and not respecting your sleep schedule in general. Learn how to appropriately approach these problems and make it work. These are the real living issues to prepare for, not just leaving their desk light on when you are trying to sleep.
Alone Time
The absolute best part about living in off-campus housing is the privacy. You have your own room and you can do whatever you want. You can invite your friends over and gossip about your roommate, but don't do that. You can invite a partner over for a night cap, if you are feeling inclined. College is hard and emotions run wild, so you can cry, and cry as much as you want. No more taking showers just to let the tears run or waiting for your roommate to leave to feel all of the feelings. No more stifled sniffles under a blanket at 2 a.m.; just let it all out. No matter what the thinness of the walls, this is still a better alternative than crying in the dorms. No one is going to ask you about it, and if they do, just start crying and they will regret ever asking. Tears strike fears. Use your alone time and have healthy emotional moments.
Money Management
At the risk of sounding too much like your dad, learn the value of a dollar! Paying your own rent and buying your own groceries are the two biggest things that will always be a part of your adult life. Realize that you have all the fixings in your fridge to make a perfectly good turkey sandwich and pass on the urge to hit Chipotle after class. Remember that your rent is due in two weeks and keep that in mind when you are walking the aisles of Target. Make smart choices; learn that you don't need name brand paper towels, and that 100 pretty good trash bags is better than 25 force flex ones. If you want to treat yourself, pick up extra hours at work. Earn that wine. Remember there is no such thing as a free lunch. (Hi. It's me: your dad, again.)
Get To Know Yourself
Use this time to get to know yourself in a comfortable and judgement-free environment. I don't know about you, but when I lived in the dorms, I did not feel like I could 100 percent be myself. Someone was always there, and whether they were actually judging me or not I don't know, but it made me anxious enough to not want to try things. College is a time to get comfortable with yourself so that you can go out into the real world with confidence in who you are and what you want. Stay up into the wee hours of the night and watch stand-up specials, learn you love comedy and start writing your own, sit in your room and do yoga and realize you are actually comfortable with your body and mind, play "Nancy Drew" computer games until you're dead and learn that you are interested in digital animation, and make it a point to do research on it. Literally everything is easier to do when you have a space you feel comfortable in. So go into your room, close the door, and DO IT! Not the sex, unless you're interested in doing the sex. No one is going to judge you.
Independence
I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T, do you know what that means? You're on your own! No RA to take care of you, or bug you. No one to tell you what to do and what not to do, no one to tell you when "quiet hours" are, no one to tell you you can't have alcohol in your room. It's your life and you live it, just the way you want to. Freedom! The sweet taste of being in charge of your own life. Learn from your mistakes and grow from them. Take pride in no one holding your hand through the semester and learn that you are stronger than you think.
Learn When To Ask For Help
Just because you're on your own doesn't mean YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN. We are all going to have those moments when we smoke too much and accidentally eat all of our cereal in one sitting and need to ask our parents to buy us lunch. There are going to be those moments. Learn from them, and learn when to ask your parents for help. You don't want to be the son/daughter that cried rent, but sometimes, things happen, and expenses change, and we need to ask for a little extra cash. You've learned money doesn't grown on trees, but you still spent the last $20 in your bank account at the bars. Being on your own means making mistakes, and these are the mistakes we can make when it's still socially acceptable for our parents to bail us out. The important thing is that we learn from these mistakes and make fewer of them as time goes on. Don't take advantage of your parents, be responsible.
