Picture a college campus, right now. Don't even think about it. What do you see? Perhaps a huge, grassy green quad bordered by gothic-style academic buildings. Maybe you see the one street with column-adorned frat houses all in a row, with people blasting music and getting borderline daytime drunk. Maybe the campus is an oasis, and the entire connecting town is centered around it. These attributes are appealing to many when they look into a college, but certainly not to me.
I'm independent, unconventional, and just down-right quirky, and I knew that the school I attended would need to be perfect for people who have these same qualities. When making my final decision, which ultimately ended up being Boston University, I knew I would be much more comfortable here than any traditional campus.
I needed to be in an easily-accessible location. A bit of background information first: the summer before junior year of high school, when I started to visit college campuses, I was vacationing abroad when a severe family emergency hit. Being so far away and having to get home in such a quick manner made me realize the necessity of being accessible while at college. The state schools that many of my peers chose were in small towns that required several hours of driving to reach (not to mention the possibility of a flight beforehand). Staying away from small-town colleges and choosing to look in major metropolitan areas like NYC, Boston, and Atlanta made me feel a lot more comfortable in moving out-of-state. Being in Boston means that getting home on a moment's notice is (in the worst case) taking one of the numerous daily hour-long flights to LaGuardia or JFK, or hopping on the T and booking the next bus ticket right from my phone.
I needed to live outside of a bubble. Up until college it's extremely rare to live independently, and while a traditional closed campus is a gradual step towards complete independence, tons of students never leave campus to explore with the exception of a few sleazy bars. I'm an explorer, so what I loved about urban open campuses was that the students had an entire city to take advantage of. It's extremely common to leave campus when the borders are undefined and fuzzy like at BU or NYU, and there are constantly a ton of events throughout the community that, unlike those near traditional campuses, are not all intended exclusively for students.
I needed to be connected. When I rode the T for the first time and emerged from the underground onto Blandford Street, seeing a light rail track running through the entire campus, I knew that I needed that amenity. Being able to effortlessly enter a world-class city from a station at my doorstop is a huge bonus, as I can go to events, internships, or other neighborhoods without difficulty.
While I understand the appeal to some of the closed campus concept, I feel the open campus is an easier adjustment to young professional life and a more realistic opportunity to live independently. The open campus has more diverse and open social opportunities, and while there might not be a quad to hang out on, there's an entire city to hang out in instead.
