When I was in college about a decade ago, I lived in the dorms all five years. They were your typical double occupancy door rooms, although for a number of reasons I only had two roomates during my college years. One was very cool, but the first one was an asocial stoner who creeped me out so much I spent as much of my time outside the dorm as possible. So where did you live in your college years–dorm, on or off campus apartment, private house, or with relatives? Who did you have to share it with? And which arrangement was the most enjoyable?
Dorm freshman year. I’d like to think I was a normal, well-adjusted fellow, but… well, fuck, man, I was an engineering major, and I was a furry before anyone even knew what furries were. That said, my roomie was a fucking NROTC Nazi dickweed, so it all balances out, right?
After that… I spent my sophomore year with a couple of roommates, smoking a lot of weed with one of them and not getting along very well with the other. Junior year, I was solo. Just me and my kitty. The kitty is still with me today… fifteen years old or so. Senior year, I found some cool dude to move in with again, and we put up with each other by generally doing our best not to acknowledge that we were both technically living in the same place. Since then, I’ve lived with my folks, on much the same basis as I lived with my senior roomie, and on my own with my cat… probably on much the same basis again.
I went to a “Commuter University” in the middle of a major city. At the time they didn’t have any dorms. Students either lived at home or had apartments. The typical student age at that school was around 25. Most of us had jobs, & our own families. We attended college around our work schedule. I took a lot of evening classes.
That school has changed dramatically since the early 90’s. They’ve built some dorms and its transitioning into a typical pimple faced, 18 year old student demographic. There’s still a lot of adults attending too.
Cégep: lived at home and commuted (I had a car).
University (round 1): First year, lived in a house with 2 other people about 10 minutes from campus. Second-year: lived in a house with 5 other people (one of them was my SO) in a city about 45 minutes away from my school (but right near SO’s school) and commuted with the same car. Third year until graduation: lived in an apartment with my SO and commuted.
University (round 2): lived in the apartment I share with my husband (who was my SO since Cégep) and commuted by transit. Still have the same car, though, 14 years and counting after I bought it.
My first college I lived in a dorm. My second college was close to my hometown so I lived with my family. My third college I was out on my own so I lived in my apartment.
First year, I lived with my parents. Towards the end of that year, I started dating a classmate, and during that summer she kicked out her roommate and I moved in. We got married a year later.
(Bear in mind that I started school at 22, so the marriage thing wasn’t that unusual).
For my first degree, straight out of school (when I was aged 17-20), I lived at home with my parents the whole time that I was studying. This is a very common practice in Australia. The university that I attended was quite close - only about 10 km away.
By the time I did my second degree, I owned my own home.
The first time, I was still living with my parents. The second time, again, I was living with my parents, because my husband was going to be stationed on a base that supposedly had no available housing, and supposedly the town the base was in also had no available housing. The third time, I was living with my husband. I’ve never lived in a dorm at all.
Most Spanish universities don’t have dorms (heck, half of them don’t even have campuses); while there are such things available, they’re not affiliated with a university or college. Universities may have a housing service which helps hook people up with roommates; it may match students with old people that have rooms to let, or act as a go-between between people with flats to rent and the students in need of them.
I lived with my grandparents at first, and later in a dorm. 70 girls, 64 of us in single-occupancy rooms. In general, the doubles were occupied by whomever had gotten the short straw, but there was a girl who preferred to sleep in company (nightmares) and a pair of sisters who also preferred to share.
Several of my out-of-town classmates had flats in town, which they filled up with other roommates; many of those who owned were from towns nearby, so the families had bought the flats reckoning it made more sense since they could be used by any cousins that needed them. One shared with her cousin and two friends of the cousin. We were studying ChemE; the other three were in Hairdressing - not a match made in heaven.
When I was in graduate school in the US, I lived on campus for a couple of months, later in shared housing nearby. In Scotland I lived on campus and it blew goats through an extremely narrow straw. The internet provider was so bad they ended up returning us the cost of their services…
Dorms all four years. Couldn’t really afford a place in DC the three years I was there, and partying with Russian students was a lot more fun than renting a room from a family I didn’t know the year I spent abroad.
Freshman and sophomore year I lived in a typical double room in a typical dorm. I was an RA my junior year, so had a single room. My friends and I got an apartment senior year, mostly because we didn’t get on campus housing in the lottery.
I actually liked the dorm the best. I had a rocky friendship with my freshman roomie, but my sophomore roommate and I had a great time. She went abroad Jr year, but she was in the apartment senior year.
I went to college three times.
1975: single, working, and living in an apartment with a roommate. Left due to poor grades and having a full time job.
1985: married, working and living in an apartment with a better looking roommate. Managed to finish with undergrad degree.
2005: married with kids, working fulltime and living in a house (same good looking roommate). Finished graduate degree.
Apartment or house; Never lived in a dorm.
Lived with my Mom in the suburbs, took the bus in to McGill every day.
I’m amazed at how many people go to faraway schools and live in dorms and apartments - where do you find all that money?
At Kent State, I rented a room in a house just across the street from the campus.
At the University of CO, I shared a house, then rented an apartment near the campus at different points in my undergrad/grad career. I also lived with my parents for part of this time and took the bus to classes.
At the University of Lancaster in the UK, I lived in one of the colleges–more like an American university’s dorm than Christchurch at Oxford except that I had the room to myself.
At Emporia State U, I lived in a student apartment a couple of blocks from the campus.
I liked the college best. I was just two flights up from most of my classes.
My first year of college, I lived in a private dorm very close to campus. I had a single room, but it had very thin walls, so I got to listen to my suitemate’s answering machine at all hours of the day and her hours-long phone conversations with her boyfriend at night. My other suitemate basically moved in with her boyfriend, so she was never around, to the extent I can’t think of her name.
My next two years, I lived in a student-centered apartment complex, with a shuttle bus to campus and individual leases for all roommates, so that if one person flaked out or took off if didn’t affect everyone else. My last year and during grad school, I lived in an apartment complex which was still on a shuttle route but had fewer students and was thus much quieter. I got along well with my roommates, but enjoyed living on my own during grad school.
First time I went, the college was about 3 miles from home, so I rode my bike and lived at home for that year. I did spend the January mini-mester in a dorm on campus just to see what it was like - I didn’t like it.
When I went back (to another college) 3 years later, I was in the Navy and had a income, so I had a series of apartments off campus. I started out living alone. Then I moved in with a roomie. Then I moved back out on my own. Alone was better.
As an undergrad I lived in the dorm all four years. It would’ve been expensive to try and live of-campus, unless in a frat or other living group. Professors were doubling up in apartments. But I did go off the meal plan after the first two years, and started cooking for myself.
In my first grad school I lived in University grad student housing. Again, it was close by and cheap. For my second grad school I rented an apartment sight-unseen through the mail, just so I could have a place to drop my stuff after I drove ove 1,000 miles to get there. It turned out to be better than anything else I could find in the area (including university housing), so I stayed there my whole time.
Never lived in a dorm; always rooming houses or apartments or sharing a house with other students.
Loans, jobs, scholarships, help from your parents? Same as how people go to an expensive college instead of a cheap state school, or go to college at all. The cost of my room and board plus tuition at a very respected state university was less than the cost of tuition at a private college, for instance. I went to college about 3 hours from home. The city I grew up in didn’t have options for college outside of a tech school, a 2-year state university, or a small private liberal arts college, which didn’t work for me.
I stayed in the university dorms for the first two years (random roomie, then friend I met in college), then rented a house with friends for the rest of the time. I liked the house the best, compared to sharing one room in the dorms with another person and a communal bathroom with maybe 20 other women.
In my first go-round of college, I lived in a dorm. Pardon, no, a residence hall, we were officially forbidden from referring to them as dorms, if we had to talk to anyone official about our housing situation, they actually wouldn’t answer questions that used the word dorm(itory). Good times.
Anyway, I got a horror show of a roommate. She was an athlete who should’ve roomed with another athlete but instead I got to wake up for her 5 AM drills due to her inability to move quietly, and I managed to move out into a single midway through the first semester. Second semester I was in the single. Third semester I got another horrible roommate, who was a little snotty thing who thought herself amazingly superior because she was… I don’t even know why. No one on the floor liked her and she ended up moving, but I ended up leaving too.
Now that I’m back in college at my advanced age, the concept of living in anything remotely resembling “student housing” is akin to living with cockroaches. I’m happy at home, thank you.