Living off campus presents a lot of freedom but also a lot of responsibility. As college students, all of us live on very specific budgets, budgets that stem from how much money our parents want to put in our accounts, or based on how much we worked this summer and how open we are to blowing all that money.
Living off campus however, introduces a whole new world of stress and freedom. It's strange how quick people are to get excited about living off campus, it brings this whole sense of freedom, particularly in the amount of chance you have to have your own room so there's no need to have those awkward conversations with your roommates when you need the room for an hour or half an hour or however long it takes you.
What people often overlook is the immense responsibility that comes with off campus life, and most people end up spending more money when they live off campus particularly on one thing that is missing the most when you are living on campus, food. Food is a luxury and a liability at the same exact time, for the reason that its supply creates its own demand so easily and the fact that we have things like hungryhuskies and other websites in our faces constantly it's too tempting to just hop on the internet and order some food.
Most people are quick to look away from the concept of cooking because it brings with it a lot of stress and unwanted time being wasted, or so people think. It's strange how quick people are to hound others for swipes when they start looking off campus. People will even go as far as to sneak into dining halls or talk to random people outside the dining hall in perhaps a flirtatious manner to get a swipe out of them and perhaps even a meal with someone they are going to bring to their rooms later.
Cooking brings an interesting perspective to the life of a college student, it brings in a responsibility that most college students don't want to accept right away, I know I didn't. Living off campus is exciting and should be naturally happy, I mean, there's no more RAs or any overlooking sort of regulatio on you and you are free to do whatever you want whenever and there is a little to no chance that you will be caught for it.
But it's hypocritical that all these things that make off campus living difficult are so easily overlooked and people who don't belong off campus choose that way of life. Personally, I love cooking, it is therapeutic and is genuinely fun when you get past the initial humps and are able to enjoy yourself and respect the creations that you have made. But it is a job that is so often ignored by people that it ends up being a hobby and becomes more of a chore. The chore isn't something that a person was punished with, it's something that they should enjoy and something that they honestly should have known about before entering this way of life.
So take a second before you choose to live off campus, cooking isn't the only responsibility but it sure as hell is the most fun and if it seems as much of a chore to people, then they may as well not live off campus.
