As a first-year, most people tend to live on campus. It isn’t the most ideal idea at first because after being used to having my own room and space I now have a roommate and even have to share a bathroom. It may be a huge change from what I was used to but there are various pros and cons.
Pros:
1. You always have someone to talk to
In college, people typically end up having roommates. You end up being in the room together most of the time when you don’t have classes so if you get along with your roommate, you can talk to them very easily and make a new friend. You can probably end up connecting very well with your roommate(s) and becoming great friends so that you can always talk to someone.
2. Room is included with furnishing
The great thing about this is that you do not need to be moving your bed from home all the way to where you’re going to be living during school. Most dorms typically tend to come with twin beds, desks, and chairs, as well as a mini micro-fridge and dressers. It helps because you only bring things that would help you feel more at home and do not have to bring in any furniture.
3. Clean environment
At UCR, we have a housekeeper who usually takes care of the bathroom and showers. In the actual room, since there isn’t much room to make a mess, the room typically tends to be clean and non-messy.
4. Convenient and safe location
By convenient, I mean that it is close to campus. Most of the time dorms tend to be not too far from the campus so most people just walk/bike/skate to class. It is much more safe living on campus since most campuses try to be safe with different types of security for their students so that nothing too bad happens.
Cons
1. Lack of privacy
Since most people tend to share roommates, there is a huge lack of privacy because the room belongs to more than one person. It makes it much harder to have “me” time and be alone because the other person might want to be in the room.
2. Regular checks by RAs
This can get quite annoying because you have other people checking up on you and making sure you aren’t doing anything wrong. It sucks because once people are in college they tend to be 18 and older, so having someone else around the same age checking up on you sucks.
3. Laundry struggles
I hate this so much. I have to pay every time I want to wash or dry my clothes which sucks. And I have to carry my dirty laundry from my room to wherever the laundry room is. It sucks because there’s so much I have to carry and it gets quite heavy.
4. Community bathrooms
This was by far my biggest nightmare. I live in a suite-style dorm so rather than sharing the bathroom with like 50 people I share it with only 10 girls. It’s not too bad, but just the fact that we have to all share a bathroom and shower kind of sucks especially when we all want to shower at the same time.
Living in a dorm might have different pros and cons, but it is an experience that is actually pretty fun. You live with different people and create friendships you probably wouldn’t have if you commute. Although there are bad times, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.