There are so many perks to living on campus as a college student. I will never get tired of rolling out of bed at 7:50 a.m. to walk a few steps down the street to my 8 a.m. class, or turning the corner and walking into the all-you-can-eat buffet three meals a day. There is a wholesome, small-town feel about having all your friends within a mile radius and being able to access all the university resources without having to start up your car and spend your precious money on gas. As a freshman, living on campus was an absolute no-brainer. I knew in order to indulge in the true college experience, I would have to live in a dorm in the center of it all.
Fast forward now to about 9:45 a.m. yesterday and attach a closeup shot of me on my computer, not in the least happy about what is showcased on the screen. If you chose to apply to live on campus next semester, I’m sure you know the exact feeling. The housing process as a sophomore is a bit different than what it was as a freshman. Instead of receiving a contract number that determines your fate based on when you sign up, sophomore through senior year on-campus housing is decided based on a student’s achieved credit hours. The more credit hours you have, the better chance you have of receiving good housing options. With so many students taking college credit classes in high school (myself included), many have very inflated credit hours even as underclassmen.
Having so many students and not so many housing options, we hit a roadblock: where will some students be living next year? While I understand that some students may not get those apartment-style dorms they were really hoping for after a year of sharing a bathroom with three other girls picking up gosh knows how much hair out of that shower drain, underclassmen should be given priority when it comes to on-campus housing as they are still new to campus and not yet fully acclimated. With Florida State University over-enrolling each year (and my specific class of ‘26 having to compete with all the COVID-19 gap year students), the pickings get slimmer each year. I had friends with 86-90 credit hours fail to get an apartment-style room and instead were put back into a small dorm. While they are thankful to be given a place to live, I find it so hard to believe that these on-campus options filled up so fast within the first day. As a sophomore, I would have never guessed that so many juniors and seniors would be choosing to live on campus.
If you’re reading this article and find yourself in this “nowhere to live” position or maybe didn’t get the ideal Traditions or Ragans apartment-style dorm, my best advice would be to
- Keep looking because the housing search isn’t over yet and
- Be grateful for the cards you are dealt in life and make the very best of them.
Sometimes things don’t work out according to plan and you have to simply do your best in the situation you are placed in. Life’s most rewarding and memorable experiences seem to take place when you are given the unexpected and make the very best of it.
University Housing has set the final closing date for March 1, so until then, keep on logging into the portal and searching! Some people are holding onto their spots as they search for off-campus apartments, some students may choose to transfer to the University of Florida come Feb. 24, and girls will be girls and change their minds about whom they choose to room with. So take this “housing crisis” as an opportunity to learn the new bus routes from your farther-than-you-hoped dorm with your new bus driver bestie and form closer relationships with your roommates in that smaller-than-you-hoped room. Lastly, don’t forget to call up your parents and tell them how much you miss living under their roof…you just don’t know how good something is until it’s gone.
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