Living in an apartment is definitely an important milestone while away at college. I’m not saying living in a dorm is necessarily a bad thing, in fact, I highly encourage living in a dorm for your first year of college. It allows you to really get to know your campus and get used to the college life by being right smack in the middle of it. For the rest of your time in college, however, I recommend living in an apartment. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide whether you want to live in a dorm or apartment. Hopefully after you read about the 4 ways apartments and dorms differ from each other, the decision won’t be hard to make.
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Bedroom
Dorms are notorious for shared bedrooms, shared bathrooms, and microwave meals. Apartments are appealing because of the space you can finally have for yourself. Your bedroom decorations at your apartment do not have to correlate with anyone else’s since you have your own room (how awesome). Late night studying is easier to work on when you don’t have to worry about keeping your roommate up. Plus, if you decide to snooze a couple times after a study session, (more like 7) you won’t have anyone complaining about it.
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Kitchen
NO. MORE. RAMEN. You have the opportunity to make meals and enjoy healthier meal choices that aren’t made in the microwave or from a drive-thru. Having a kitchen is going to save you so much money in the long run because you can make a meal and have enough leftovers to last you a couple days. Guess who can enjoy hot breakfast on the weekends? You can.
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Parking
By living on campus, you didn’t really have to worry about parking in order to get to class. Living off campus can bring the stress of finding a parking spot (and still being on time to class) if you decide to drive to class. The perks of off-campus housing, however, are the shuttles that are provided. You don’t have to worry about wasting gas or finding a parking spot. HOW AWESOME.
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Cleaning
Dorms at UCF provide cleaning services, but guess who has to clean your apartment (and no, it’s not your mom). Making sure your apartment is tidy is up to you and your roommates. Sometimes that can mean making a cleaning schedule everyone follows or making sure everyone cleans up after themselves to make sure your apartment is clean. In either case, it is not someone else’s responsibility to make sure your apartment is clean.