Your freshman year of college is definitely an experience. When you first move into the dorms, you are overwhelmed by the amount of freedom that you have. You don't have your parents constantly over your shoulder making sure that you do your homework and that you're in bed at a decent time. Instead, you have Resident Advisors that enforce the rules but don't baby you because they expect you to act like a responsible adult.
At first blush, living in the dorms is amazing. You finally have your own space (yet you probably share it with at least one person) where you can choose to live any way that you like. You have a meal plan, a free ARC membership and access to free on campus printing. About halfway through the semester, the "move-in sparkle" starts to fade and you see the dorms for what they truly are, overcrowded and overpriced.
When I was living in the dorms, my rent was ridiculously expensive. I was working approximately 40 hours a week and I took out loans, and I could barely scrape up enough funds to pay my rent. I was paying nearly $1500 to share a room with a sub-par meal plan. And I wasn't just sharing my room with one person, I was sharing my room with the entire floor. The walls in Chapultepec Hall were so thin that I could literally hear people having conversations in the hallways. And forget having your own personal bathroom time. When I was home, I thought having to share a bathroom with my two sisters was difficult- when I got to SDSU, I didn't realize that I'd be sharing a bathroom with an entire floor of girls.
By the end of my freshman year, while I felt eternally blessed for the experience of living in the dorms and the people that I met, I was ready to move out and move on with my life. When I moved into my apartment my sophomore year, I found that I was more productive, more rested and more connected and involved on campus.
Incoming freshman, starting in the fall of 2017, will not have the luxury of choosing where they live their sophomore year. SDSU has implemented their "Sophomore Success Program" that requires non-local freshman, student-athletes, Guardian Scholar, Nursing and Honors students to live in on-campus housing for their first two years of college.
SDSU claims that extending the time that students stay in the dorms will in turn, increase academic productivity, strengthen the bond that students have with SDSU and will allow students to graduate faster. What is not mentioned by SDSU is how much this new program will cost students and the stress that it will put on those students that will experience financial hardship. With the new dorms built on College Ave. and the remodels of Tenochca and Zura Residence Halls, I find it hard to believe that SDSU passed this program to benefit students. From an outsider looking in, SDSU is taking advantage of incoming freshman because they don't know any better. While there is an exemption process, many incoming freshman are not informed that they have a choice or that there even is a two-year live on requirement.
