One of the most exciting things at South Carolina is that after freshman year, the majority of students move to off campus housing. In theory, it seems like the best thing in the world—no more RMs or swiping your Carolina card to get into your dorm, no more tiny twin beds, and if you’re really lucky, you even get your own bathroom or walk-in closet. However, moving out of the dorms isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. Here are some of the downsides of off campus living that no one warns you about.
1. Making your own food. One of the best things about moving off campus is you now have a kitchen to cook your own food in, which means no more gross dining hall food. But after you figure out how many ingredients it takes to make a good meal and how much time it will take to actually cook it, you realize that it’s way easier to just order a pizza.
2. Sharing chores. Splitting the responsibility of doing the dishes and emptying and the dishwasher with your roommates is a lot more complicated than you think. It can quickly become an argument of who does more around the house, which one of you did it last, or the classic “those aren’t even my dishes.” This can cause even more tension than sharing your dorm room.
3. Being alone. One of the few perks of living in a dorm is there are always people around pretty much any time of the day. It can actually get a little lonely when you come home from class and none of your roommates are there.
4. Actually going to class. Even when all you had to do was roll out of bed five minutes before class, it could still sometimes be a struggle to get there. Now you actually have to find a way just to get on campus. And if you drive, you have to worry about the disastrous battle of finding a parking spot. Not to mention you now have to leave your place at least 20 minutes before class starts, which means that you just have another reason to convince yourself not to go.
5. Working out. Living on campus made it easy to take advantage of Strom and the group exercise classes they offered. Now, once you come home from class for the day and are watching TV in your living room, it can be really hard to make yourself drive ALL the way back to campus and find parking just so you can work out for 45 minutes to an hour. In other words, it is way more convenient to skip out on those workouts.