When you moving out of station or even out of country for further studies, a major part of that practice is the accommodation; where you are going to live, will it be safe and with whom will you have to share a room with, it that’s the case. People might underestimate the importance of where you decide to live, on or off campus, but it determines quite a lot in a student’s life. From making friends to your studies, almost everything is impacted due to this, directly or indirectly.
When you first decide to move out, you are pretty much excited to leave home, socialize with new people, and experience the independence of the dorm life with some other enthusiastic teenagers. Many of us are even excited that we will be able to make friends who belong to various cultures and learn from them, but things don’t always go how we expect them to go now, do they? Dorm life isn’t that difficult, but it does involve some drawbacks also. It mainly depends on who you live with, where do you live and how you cope up with everything in the dorm life. Here are some pros and cons of the dorm life:
Pros
- New friends:
Dorm life definitely means a new social life and some good friends. When the university life starts and you shift in your dorm, you will find it much easier to make friends as almost everyone around you will also be doing the same task. Moreover, many at times, the supervisors at the dorms will do their best for the freshman, to arrange events for them to keep them entertained. This will increase the chances of you making friends even more.
- Less responsibility:
Living in a dorm means you don’t have to be responsible for the place, for the bills, for the food or for the security either. The only thing you really have to do is cleaning up your room, and who said that’s necessary? The campus staff will take care of the maintenance, the building and even the trash that has to be taken out. In a dorm, the mess provides the food and all you got to do is go to the dining hall and have the food that’s offered. Isn’t that a lot of less responsibility all together?
- Independence:
Isn’t that why you first wanted to move out? Independence is one of the most important advantages of living in a dorm. You might be sharing a room with another person, but you are all by yourself at the end of the day. This opportunity will give you a chance to grow up and break the shell that you were previously in. Now you will not have your parents to rescue you from whatever you might get yourself into. No more curfews now, and to say the least, you are now your own boss!
- Close to campus:
Another very important benefit of in an on-campus dorm is the proximity to the university. The campus will be just a walk away and you will not even have to take the bus or any other kind of transport, which means you will not have to worry about the traffic being jammed, in case you are late for class. Another advantage of living on campus is that you will have access to the gym, the library and even the laboratories, in case you need to visit any of these. If not that, many online facilities like college essay writing services are available to make your life easier while you are at the dorm and not in the mood to leave the room to visit the campus counselor.
Cons
- Privacy issues:
It is all fun and games when it starts, but as time passes you will notice that you don’t get any alone time at all. It’s not that you will not love your room mate or anything, but everyone needs some alone time, right? Moreover, there is not just your room mate who lives in the dorm, there are many other teenagers also. You might have to bear with the noise of loud music, doors slamming and even screaming, if the peace and order of the dorm is disturbed by anyone.
- Away from family:
You might not feel homesick when freshman year starts, but as you move through the year, you will most probably start feeling homesick. Even if you don’t feel homesick, you will at least start missing your family members. Maybe your mother who always asked you about your day? Or your father who picked you up from school every day? It will be the most difficult when you are not doing anything or are alone.
- The cost you have to pay:
The tuition fee is very expensive when you are going to university, but many people forget to incorporate the accommodation costs that you have to pay to get a dorm room. A lot of times, for students who are on financial aid, the tuition fee is covered, but they do not get any allowance for the dorm costs and that makes it very difficult for them as then they have to work along with studying to cover the costs. And the costs keep rising with time.
- No Kitchen:
Another drawback of living in a dorm is that you don’t get to have a kitchen of your own where you can cook for yourself and your friends. If you are very lucky, you might get a refrigerator and a microwave oven. There will be a collective kitchen, which will be shared by all the students. Now imagine how messy that kitchen would be! Also, for that collective kitchen also, you will have to have your own utensils, which may even be lost or get stolen considering how public the kitchen is. Kitchen is important, especially for people who don’t want to eat from the mess.