After being shoved off campus due to COVID last March, I moved back home to New Hampshire. I did college online and Zoom and the stress of COVID felt like enough to push me over the edge. For my last semester of college, I had the opportunity to go back to in person learning and I did not want to pass that up, so in the middle of January, I moved into an apartment. And boy, is this an adjustment. I thought that since I had lived away from home in a dorm for three years, this would be a piece of cake and a welcome change compared to never leaving my house for months. Boy, was I wrong.
Here are some things to consider before making the leap from dorm living to apartment living… even weird ones you might not have thought about.
Cooking
I am a baker, not a cook, and I thought the knowledge would transfer over. Dear goodness it does not. So far, I have set tofu on fire, cheese on fire, and had several instances involving carbon monoxide. It seems that even the things I can do at home, I cannot do here.
When I was living on campus, I got all my meals at the dining hall and when I wanted snacks, I would hoard them in my room and eat them at around 3 am over a TV show. Now I have to make my own meals or get take out (which is more expensive). I would say this is the biggest change between dorm living and apartment living. I had only factored this in as one thing: “cooking”, but it is much more. There is shopping, time spent cooking, time spent cleaning dishes, time spent planning food, possible meal prepping, and so on.
This is all a source of stress. Let’s break it down and show the differences between the two of them in terms of steps to produce a meal.
Dorm
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Walk to the dining hall
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Get the food
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Eat the food
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Put the dirty dishes away
Apartment
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Decide in advance what to make
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See what items are needed
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Go to a store to get the items
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Shop for the items
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Prepare the items
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Follow the directions to make the meal
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Eat the meal
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Store any leftover food and clean the dishes
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Put the clean dishes away
This is not to be dramatic, but I had no idea the extra steps that I was going to have to take. Even when I cook at home, I often have the ingredients already or can ask someone to get them for me, but this is not the case at school. Be prepared for meals to be less easy, but also for the opportunity to be more independent and follow your entire food process on your own. Or just order takeout, but that can be expensive.
Furniture
Moving into a dorm is a stressful experience. You often have a roommate, the process to get your stuff out of your car and into the room can be chaotic and once you’re in, there is never enough room. However, you can count on there being the basic furniture to live. At an apartment, you can’t count on that. Yours may be furnished or it may not. Mine was furnished in certain areas from my roommate, but my bedroom had nothing but a light in the ceiling. Having to get your own furniture costs money, as well as time for assembly and more time to get settled. Keep this in mind when moving in and making your budget.
Utilities
Watch out for those utilities. I knew I’d have to pay them of course, but they can easily make an apartment with what you think is a fixed price be a lot more expensive. In a dorm, that is all included in your room and board price.
Commute
Another difference is your commute. In a dorm, you’re most likely living right near the school and will be walking to your classes. Apartments can be bus rides, train rides, or car rides away, and this will be a factor when picking out your apartment, as well as your classes. Overall, it is another factor and something else that can add time that you did not have to think about before.
For me, this is an opportunity to grow and become more independent at my own pace. There are still resources at school and I am not on my own yet. But I would be lying to myself if I said this was not harder than I thought. However, I am getting better and adapting… it’s only been a couple of weeks.