Living in on-campus housing stirs many different opinions in students. Some love it, and others hate it. Most of the time, living in a dorm ends up being a love-hate relationship. In this article, I will list the 10 worst and best things about living on campus!
First, the bad things:
1. Housing? More like boarding: You feel like a dog that just got boarded when your parents drop you off. You are assigned to a room and have to stay there until school is over and your parents come and move you out.
2. Roommates: This one can go one way or the other—you either love them or hate them. Then half the time, people who are not even your roommate becomes your roommate and kick you out of your own room.
3. Tiny rooms: When you are stuck in a tiny room with another person, you really get to know them. Everything gets stacked on top of each other because there is no room for anything and yet you lose everything, especially when you need it the most.
4. Having to share: Nothing is yours anymore, and everything you have also becomes your roommate's. You use things of theirs and they use things of yours. Either they will respect your stuff as theirs or they won't.
5. "Updated and top of the line": The adjectives used to describe campus housing when you go on college tours. After you move in, you quickly realize that is not the case. After signing your year-long lease, everything breaks on you, and maintenance takes four days to fix it. You might as well come to college with a tool box and do it yourself.
6. You get to "know" people: I'm talking about those people that you don't really care to know but they put themselves out there. Walls are extremely paper thin, and you hear everything. You hear people's parties when you are trying to study at 5 in the afternoon and also you hear people making love in the room right above yours.
7. What hot water?: You feel like you are taking a shower in the wide open in the middle of Alaska. No matter how many times you try to beat other people to the shower, you will always get left with the cold water. That is, of course, unless the city where you go to school decides to ruin their water treatment center, then you don't have water at all!
8. Key cards: They are always on you or with you somewhere, but whenever you need them to get into your room, you can never find them. Then, if you leave it in your room, you get charged to have someone open it. That card is your life, and if you lose it, there's another charge..
9. Cleaning: No matter how much you clean something in your dorm, the mess always seems to reappear. There are mystery stains on your carpets, walls and bathroom. The dorm is cleaned out before you move in but, hey, I guess we all have different definitions of what clean is.
10. Difficult people: I tried to be nice on this one but there is no way to be nice about it. You have to deal with people who decide to go out at 3 a.m. in the morning and literally just scream outside for no reason. You have to deal with the people who just let their car alarms go off for 10 straight minutes and do nothing about it. You have to deal with those who never want to pick up their laundry, so you can never wash your clothes. And you also have to deal with those people who just won't leave you alone.
Now that we have talked about the downside of campus living, let's discuss the positives.
1. Close to campus: You are maybe no more than 10 minutes or less away from the school, so if you wake up 20 minutes before your class starts, you might make it in time (School parking sucks).
2. You meet new people: You meet those people who become your best friends and let you stay with them whenever you want. You become family with them, and they do everything that you do. They might even go Greek with you, and you never have to be alone ever again.
3. Interaction: You get to experience a whole new variety of people when you all live in the same general area. You might even have a culture shock but you are thankful for it after you experience more and more. It broadens your horizons and is a great experience in college to have.
4. You get a kitchen: Well, at least some of us do! (Thank goodness I did!) You get to cook a yummy meal with your friends or even burn your microwave, either is fine. And why would you not love the one place that holds all of your junk food when you eat your sorrows after failing everything?
5. Memories: Some of the best memories that you will cherish are honestly made in the crappy dorms that you are living in. You may or may not be able to tell your children one day about the time you went to Cookout at 1 a.m. with your best friend.
6. You are always cold: You never have to worry about being hot because if you turn on your AC, it works a little too well, and also the same with the heat. There is never a happy medium temperature.
7. Roommates can be a blessing: When you are having those horrible, I just can't do this anymore days (sloth days), your roommates are the first ones to notice and always let you vent. You have late night convos with them that will probably be some of the most rewarding talks you will have while living in your dorm. They are the conversations that you remember when you have nothing else left. Also, they are always there to kill a spider for you when you are up on the counter, balling your eyes out because the spider won't stop looking at you.
8. No bills: You pay when you move in and never have to pay again unless you decide to go way over on your water bill for that month.
9. "Free" Wi-Fi, and it comes furnished: You will not have to worry about buying furniture because it all comes in your dorm when you move in. It may not be the cleanest, but hey, at least you have a place to sit when you are having a mental breakdown about college and a place to sit down at to study for hours. Then the Wi-Fi is free but not always the best, but it works when you wanna binge-watch your favorite show on Netflix.
10. It gives you the real College Experience: It's the first time you are away from home, and you don't have your parents telling you when you come home and you get to have the freedom you always desired. You get to truly experience college like what you sometimes see in movies. After all is said and done though, it's the best experience ever and something you will always cherish. You will be thankful that you did live in the dorms because it prepares you for the real world.
As much as we all might hate on campus housing, it will always have it's perks. It gives you some of your life-long friends and helps you become more open-minded to the world. It is a blessing that you didn't want but in the end you are thankful for it. After you move out, you will surly miss the place that housed your freshmen year.
