My girlfriend is moving to college soon, and staying in a nice apartment/dorm type thing at UC Santa Cruz. For some stupid reason, I am green with envy about this. why?
When I went to San Jose State University, I lived with my mom. For the past ten years, she had raised me as a single mom and money was often tight. I didn’t have any scholorships, but by working hard in part-time jobs and having my mom help out, I didn’t have to take any student loans. At the time, i felt like living so close to campus anyway (20 minutes) combined with working 3 jobs that had me driving all over San Jose made it impractical to spend more money staying in dorms.
Of course, after I graduated I started missing it. Living with my mom wasn’t terrible, but at the same time I did really want the independence. After graduation I was in a ‘can’t get the motivation to get a job to support myself moving out’ rut that took two years to break out of. My girlfriend getting the opportunity I did not makes me jealous- her parents are paying for everything, and she won’t have to work at all for the next two years. While I have the satisfaction of knowing that anything I could afford to pay for myself (tuition, books, car, gas, insurance, vehicle registration, clothes, food etc) I did pay for, right now its very difficult to see it that way. I don’t really know why I feel so strongly about this- I found a way to make college work for me, and based on my goals (graduate, avoid debt, pay my own way as much as possible) I succeeded very comfortably.
I only lived on campus my first semester…my roommate was a psycho. I got an apartment after that and only moved back home after my son was born (I was ill, and Ivylad was in the Navy across the country.)
I think living on campus forces you to be independent and responsible, and if you’re not, you fail. Mom isn’t going to wake you up and go to class. Your clothes aren’t going to clean themselves. I went to college full time and worked two part time jobs. Between that and my grades (academic scholarships) I didn’t have to get student loans and I graduated a semester early. I appreciated it because I did it All By Myself. In fact, I felt a bit of scorn for a friend of mine when she said, “I have to call my mom…she hasn’t paid my rent yet.” Yeesh.
Not everyone does it (lives in dorms and all that), but I lived on a college campus for two years, in an apartment away from the same campus for one, and transferred to a communter university for this year and live with the parentals.
I think living on campus makes you feel more connected to campus life, whether or not you actually participate in much or anything. You’re always around classmates, activities are going on around you, you keep easily in touch with what everyone’s up to, etc. Unless you pay a lot or your school is super nice, the food is gonna be iffy, your room is gonna suck, you’re probably gonna share it with someone you don’t know, and you’re gonna have to wear flip flops in the shower. Living in my apartment was way cooler, but I felt much more disconnected from campus life. I was only on campus the hours I had something class related. I didn’t have to be there otherwise, so I’d be in my apartment where I could smoke cigarettes inside, cook what I wanted for dinner, and had my own room. But I missed the social aspects of dorm life.
Being a commuter and living with ol mom and dad again sucks a lot. I have to drive 20 minutes there every day, 20 minutes back. Parking is a bitch. The campus is much less integrated socially - there is a small number of people who live in dorms but not many, so while people are friendly, it’s a big college in a big city and most people already know other people that go there without having to go out of their way to make new friends.
For me, living on campus just made me feel like I was part of something. Some aspects sucked, but it was extremely fun and a cool experience overall.
While I dont see anything wrong with avoiding debt, racking up a comfortable bit of it allowed me a highly networked social life that now allows me a place to stay in thirteen states and four countries. A hundred bucks a month isn’t gonna kill me.
My dorm in college was one of the best things about being in college, IMO. I lived in a creative and performing arts dorm, with an art studio, pottery shop, metal shop, sewing rooms, real working printing press, 80 seat theatre, cafeteria, etc. We had our own dorm government, where we allocated money and planned activities. It was its own little world, and the 200 people living there were a mini-community. All the people I consider my best friends were met there.
So yeah, you missed out. It is expensive, but I think it was worth it because the experiences and exposure to awesome people was priceless.
Don’t get me wrong. Dorm life sucks. You are crammed on a hall with 20 guys you don’t know and given a random roommate. My roommate was this werido who constantly kept our door shut so no one would come to visit and he would disappear back home to his parents house every weekend. He NEVER showered or at least he never used his shower supplies (because we would place a a hair on them to see if they ever moved). My hall pretty much all got along until fraternity rush started and then it fragmented along the lines of GDI/Greek and then by which house each group had joined, making it worse than high school.
I suppose it depends on the school, but my college had a really nice campus. I liked having that connection to it that you get from living in the dorms. My school was very cliquish too, so there was very much a whole “what fraternity are you”, “what dorm are you in”, etc vibe.
I’d say whether you missed out on something depends on whether the school is mostly a residential college or mostly a commuter school. The school where my father taught was basically a commuter school, while the one I attended was mostly a residential school.
I lived in a dorm three out of four years, and the other year I lived in an off-campus apartment within walking distance of the campus, so I was still involved. I enjoyed it, but living on campus can be expensive. (According to a College Board survey I found on the internet, average cost for room and board for private schools was $7,791 ($6,636 for public schools) during the 2005-2006 academic year.)
Dorm life sucks. There’s nothing cool about it in any way. You’re living with a bunch of other retards who are away from home for the first time and are embarrassing themselves, and you’re doing so in cramped conditions with gross communal bathrooms. If you’re the type of person that needs space and alone time, it’s terrible.
Living in an apartment near campus while going to college, on the other hand, is basically a magical fantasy land from which people never want to leave.
I hated living in a dorm while I was doing it, but it was good for me because I’m not very social but when you’re in a dorm you kind of end up making friends in spite of yourself. Some of those people are still my friends today, many years later, whereas when I leave a job I’m generally forgotten (and forget everybody else) the day after I leave.
Of course, I went to a school where 90+% of the students live in the dorms during their entire stay. Living with the rest of my school really made me feel connected, and there was always something exciting going on. Yes, sometimes that something exciting was going on right outside your room when you were trying to sleep or study, but that’s easily made up for by all the fun stuff you take part in. And even when it was bad, the majority of the people I went to school with were not assholes about it as long as you asked them to quiet down a bit. They usually wouldn’t quiet down. But they also wouldn’t, like, throw rocks at you or anything.
After graduation, I missed the social interaction of roommates so much that after a while of living on my own, I moved back in with some friends. It’s only recently that the pendulum has started swinging the other way and I’m thinking I might want to live on my own again.
My dorm rooms were really tiny but there is always something to do and someone to do it with right down the hall. You also learn other random, helpful tidbits from other dorm residents that you won’t get if you pack up and leave campus at the end of the last class. Dorms are also handy because you can just walk back and do other things in your “home” in an hour break between classes. Our dorms were coed and that is how I met my wife plus many other hotties. People put their guard down in dorms and I showered in the girl’s bathrooms many times surrounded by hot, nude females that didn’t think much of it. There were also spontaneous parties breaking out that you could just wander in and out of.
It was definitely one of the best times of my life and not something you can really replicate after it is gone.
This sounds almost exactly like my own college experience.
Except, I HATED living with room-mates in such a cramped space (um, okay… at all.) If you’re social, you’d love dorm life. If you’re a recluse, like myself, you will make unforgettable friends and have special moments of silliness, but it has its moments of pure hell.
The true way to go is to rent an apartment with a bunch of your college mates. Entertainment to last a lifetime.
I lived on campus for three years because it was required, you had to be over 21 to live off. I hated almost every minute of it. I had 8 different room-mates in 9 trimesters, heh that probably says something about me too. (My goal was to make the roomies move out so I could have a single and not pay for it because I couldn’t afford it. My best effort took only 4 weeks). I finally graduated before I turned 21 and couldn’t belive how happy I was to be free of the dorm environment. Rented an apartment for 1 month alone and then found roomies thru the want ads and moved in with people I wanted to live with, bliss.
I understand your envy though. I felt the same way about mrsin. His parental units also paid for everything. Envy is a normal emotion, just don’t let it eat you up. You can’t change the past and it sounds like you did the best you could with what you had to work with. The future is soooooo much better than college stop thinking about the things you might have missed and think about the things you’re going to experience.
I just graduated from UC Santa Cruz, and overall my freshman dorm experience was positive. I’m definitely the type of person that needs my own room and my own space, but sharing a room was still a neat experience. I got lucky with my roommate, he and I got along pretty well. I’m not a very social person but sometimes it’s nice to have someone to talk to whenever the mood should strike. My hall earned a reputation for being one of the loudest and wildest in the area, and certainly there were times when the noise level was over the top, but in general I got along pretty well with my hallmates. I guess I’m just an easy-going person in general, so even if things bother me I just take it in stride. Some people don’t handle it well, there got to be quite a bit of drama in my hall later in the year.
So while I would never ever want to do it again, I’m glad I suffered through it. But it’s certainly not a requirement to enjoy college. It’s more like the type of situation where if you’re forced into it, it’s really not so bad, but if you missed out, no big deal.
I lived at home with my parents throughout my first degree. The university was only ten minutes from home, so it would have been ludicrous to live on campus. Some of my friends did live in college. From what they described I don’t think I missed anything much.
Wow, so you did your best to drive you roommate out and you wonder why you were miserable? Get a clue.
Anyways, living in a dorm sucks, but dorm life is awesome. It can be a huge pain in the ass to live with a random stranger. Some people, like sinjin, are complete assholes and impossible to live with. If you get one of those jerks it’s going to be miserable. On the other hand, it’s awesome because you are in a place with a ton of people your own age that really don’t know everyone else. The first months are especially great, before the cliques form and the personal rancor becomes a problem.
The dorm I lived in freshman year had it nearly perfect. It was a circular building and suites radiated off of the hallway. The first room you walked into was a living room. Off of that there was a node sort of thing with a bath room and doors to four aparmentish things. From the node you walked into the study rooms of the four apartments, and then to the bedroom. It was a circular building so there was more room in the bedroom than the study room.
It was the best of dorm life because you got to meet everyone out in the living room, and it avoided most of the downfalls. The bedrooms were two doors away from the living room (bedroom door and studyroom door) so you could sleep even if it were noisy out in the living room. The bedroom and studyrooms were separate so you never ran into the sleep vs. lights on to study argument.
I lived in a dorm for two years, and then an off-campus apartment for two years. The dorm was a good transition from living in my parents’ house to getting my own ass out of bed, and the (shared) apartment was a good transition to “if you want to eat, you have to get off your ass and go to the grocery store.”
A dorm teaches one to live with various other people, who may be different from oneself. It’s quite an experience; not always fun, not always pleasant, but a good idea of how the real world works.
