With winter quarter already underway, there is one thing clouding almost every freshman’s mind: To live off — or on — campus next school year.
Walking through campus this past week, I have heard nothing but conversations regarding housing. Including whom someone will be living with next year, where they want to live and the awkward situations that arise when you tell someone you do not plan on living with them. The conversations are endless.
As a freshman, I frequently contribute to this “hot topic” of the month because — let’s face it — how could I not?
One of the exciting perks of living off or on campus next year is that we’ll no longer be stuck in a cramped dorm room with one, two or three — for those unfortunate ones who got placed in an “overflow” room — other people. We won’t have to struggle to figure out which shelves are whose and where we can put our food without our roommate(s) stealing it.
Probably the most exciting aspect to having our own place next year, at least for my friends and I, is being able to cook for ourselves and not having to rely on campus dining or a microwave.
For those of you who don’t exactly know how to cook, or only know how to cook the “essentials” such as cereal and a PB&J, I suggest you buy a cookbook and get cookin’ in your residence hall’s main building. You can do it — I believe in you.
Another perk is the ability to decorate our rooms, not to mention houses or apartments. This can be a bad thing if you don’t have an eye for decorating, but it will be fun nonetheless. That is, until your other housemates reorganize everything that you organized initially, thinking it looked visually appealing and explaining that they just thought it would look better this way.
Okay, I’m obviously getting a little bit too excited with this whole housing business for next year, as I’m already envisioning scenarios in my head while writing this, but can you really blame me? I have to procrastinate somehow.
Regardless, this is the first time we get to choose who we want to live with, and I think that’s something to talk about.
Yes, you were able to request a roommate — or roommates — this year, but getting to choose your roommates for next year just seems so much more official and adult-like in the sense that we get to live off or on campus in a place that we can really call our own.
The people we choose to live with next year are people that we have gotten to know face-to-face over the past three months, whereas we probably got to know our current roommate(s) via Facebook — through messaging or stalking, but most likely both.
It’s new, exciting, somewhat stressful, and it’s kind of an awkward process — especially the part where you have to propose to a selected few friends that you want to live with them more than others. Obviously, it won’t be awkward in all situations, but either way, good luck to those of you who have yet to deal with that first step.
We have shared our insert-your-adjective-here freshman year experience with our current roommate(s), which has been wonderful because it’s our first year and we’re still just figuring things out. But being able to share our second, possibly third, maybe more, years with people you clearly like and chose to live with them, will be absolutely amazing as the rest of our college years seem promising.
It’s weird that as a freshman class, we’re already thinking about next year when this year isn’t even halfway over, though it’s getting there.
Sophomore year — or being a second-year (I have no idea which one is used more among college-goers) — will be amazing with the new place, old friends to live with and new experiences, but don’t forget to focus on making your freshman year a wonderfully crazy one.
Good luck with the awkward roommate searching and house/apartment hunting!