Postby Mich » Mon Jul 25, 2011 6:27 pm
Oh yeah!
So my first two years I lived on-campus. My first year was in the freshman dorm (an experience that won't be of much help to you, but let me get there). This was great because A) it forced me to meet people and B) was perfect when I became friends with those people and we lived right near each other. Like, in the same building. Plus we were freshman together, which is great as a bonding experience: you know that everyone else there is new.
Second year was split, actually, between an apartment in Boise (Idaho) with a horribly neglectful roommate and a dorm in Moscow (Idaho). The dorm will, forever, be supremely better. It was a pretty high-quality dorm, and I still greatly appreciated A) being on-campus, meaning going to class was about as relaxing as staying at home, B) using the food court, which, while the food wasn't super-high-quality, was always there and always plentiful, and C) still having some cooking options in that there was a shared kitchen with several stoves and ovens. Plus, it still had the factor of being near all of my friends who were also in dorms, and I could actually pick my roommates, who were awesome.
Third and fourth years I finally branched out and moved off-campus and had the same roommate for both years. We both agreed that living on-campus was much, much simpler. You paid one bill, food was always there and ready for you if you felt like cooked food, even if you didn't feel like cooking it. Being on dorms and having that five-minute walk to class was also so, so handy that I missed it, even though campus was only a fifteen minute walk from my apartment. However, there was so much more freedom: no need to worry about hanging things on the walls, no quiet hour, furniture that I picked out myself. Even though my parents were paying for most of everything (hey, it was much cheaper than living in a dorm), it gave me a lot of experience in that transitioning to a real adult post-graduation was just as smooth as could be.
It was annoying having to actually find the apartment, though. Pick one out from the potentials, determine costs, tour them, apply... Ugh. It's the most difficult part of moving.
Shell the unshellable, crawl the uncrawlible.
Row--row.