I will be attending college next year as a freshman and I am not sure whether or not I want to live on campus or off campus so my plan is to do both my first semester. What I mean is living in a dorm Monday through Thursday and staying at a apartment I rent with 2 other roommates on the weekends. In my mind this is the best of both worlds and would give me the college atmosphere while also allowing me a to preserve my personal space and let me have a place to relax. Other then financial strain ( I have a substantial college fund so this is not an issue) , is there any huge negatives to this I am not seeing? I only plan on doing this until I develop a preference.
The second rent you will be paying would pay for a nice trip to Europe or wherever over the summer. Or would such extras also be paid for by your parents?
My parents aren’t technically paying for my college now. My college fund is a trust fund that i gain control of on my 18th birthday. My parents haven’t technically put any money towards my college in 12 years since the account gains value so if you were trying to make the point that I would be placing an unfair amount of financial burden on parents you would be incorrect.
Seems extremely unnecessary, like a waste of money, stressful because you have to deal with maintaining an apartment (bills, rent, cleaning etc.) and a good way to isolate yourself from potential friends in your dorm.
Sounds like a big waste of money to me even if you can afford it. I would just make a choice and save the money.
You do college once. Do the dorm thing. You can always do an apartment in your sophomore year and beyond. After a while your arrangement will wear on you. Having to take clothes, showers, eating at different places. Sounds cool now not but after a few weeks won’t be that cool.
You also do most socializing in the dorms on the weekends. You will miss that experience and the impromptu last minute dorm stuff that does happen.
I see zero advantage to an off-campus/ on-campus split— just a lot of hassle, a lot of retrieving items from one place when you discover you need it when you are in the other, a lot of being neither fish nor fowl/ not fully connected to either group of friends, and a lot of added expense.
Go with living on-campus the first year. It will be helpful in making friends and feeling connected to the campus community. I agree with posters above that you will want to be part of the dorm experience on the weekends. The dorm experience can be a highlight of the freshman experience and an important way to get to know people. Hang out in the dorm common room. Go to meals with people in your dorm. Enjoy the college experience!
(And it is not more likely that you will have roommate problems than that you will have apartment-mate problems, and if it occurs, you will have more support/ recourse in the dorm.)
After freshman year, if you decide you would prefer to live off-campus, you can switch to it for sophomore year and beyond. And maybe even share an apartment with a friend you know from freshman year.
Many people I know live in a dorm their freshman year and then move to apartment their sophomore year. My son and daughter did so. Made a lot of friends freshman year. It was some of those friends that they got the apartment with.
Save your $$ (No matter who gave you the trust fund)!! People want to stay on their dorm floor or go out with roommates on the weekends and you will miss all of it going to meet with other people in the apartment. You will be acquaintances with all but close with no one as you will be leaving constantly even if just to check in on the apartment and what is happening there. Then you will leave there to go back and miss events at the apartment. Try the dorms out. If you do not like it you can leave and get an apartment any time but this is the one time in life everyone is trying to make friends. Also, you cannot see it yet but that money would be better served for later in life. There will always be trips, cars, homes, not to mention kids that having substantial money will help with. Even if you are totally loaded I would still stay in the residence hall, you cannot beat the experience for first time freshman
Just because you have the money doesn’t mean you should waste it. Most colleges require freshmen to live in the dorm the first year. You will be paying for room and board which probably includes your meals for 7 days. After you finish your freshman year then you can move wherever you please.
The huge disadvantage is that you’d be missing out on all the events and memories made in the freshman dorms on weekends.
If your funding is substantial, why not just rent an apt off campus just for yourself? Then, you can have all of your stuff in one place, you won’t have to deal with the dorms (living in such close proximity with others takes some getting used too, at my school my classmates seem to complain more about the dorms than they do exams) and for socialization just join some clubs.
If dorm living is a requirement for the first year, then I’d stick to the dorms and for your second year then you can make a decision if you want to live on or off campus.
Interesting plan. I know several students from wealthy families who do this with colleges & universities located within a couple of hours of major ski resorts or beaches.
Some parents purchase condos for their kids in major university towns such as Athens, Georgia.
Some schools offer special housing in homes rather than dorms for increased privacy, coziness & at home feel.
I like the idea, but I am a very independent person who doesn’t care much for group activity or crowds.
Also, depends upon the school, its dorm/housing offerings for freshmen & your personality.
Are you willing to share more info. about your college or university ?
It sounds as though you’re planning to burn through money just because you can.
Live in a dorm. It will enable you to be a real part of the campus community.
While it’s an extravagance, this is truly the best of both worlds (social life of the dorms, and a place to get away - then pick one or the other sophomore year). I completely understand. I started freshman year with a horrific roommate (until we did a room swap about two months in), and would have been much happier with a room of my own somewhere.
I’d say I made an equal number of friends in the dorm and in my classes, plus a couple in clubs. Everyone is different, but it’s not like you won’t have a social life if you live in an apartment.
You will totally miss out on the best social stuff by not being on campus on the weekends. IMO, you’ll be making your social transition much harder by not staying in your dorm full time.
The downside is people will find out you have an apartment and you will be looked at differently. They will judge, for better or worse. If you want to make friends I think it is best to blend in the beginning until people get to know you better.
If you really have a ton of money to burn, what I’d suggest is that you do the dorm thing for the first term. Don’t get an apartment yet. Be on campus, especially during the first few weekends when friendships are made. If, after the first term, you find that you really need a place to be alone, get an apartment (either in addition to the dorm or instead of it) for your second term.
If you get several weeks into the first term and find that you really need a place to be alone, do Airbnb or get a hotel room on weekends for a while. What a friend of mine used to do (not to get out of the dorm, but just because he liked to do this) was fly to Utah or similar to go skiing. He’d go to Utah for long weekends, up to Vermont for regular weekends. So you could use your $$$ to travel, and get your peace that way rather than via a separate apartment.
I’m afraid that if you have an apartment your first term, you won’t be on campus during the weekends - and that’s when most friendships are made. Thus my suggestion.
It’s a false premise: comparing weekday and weekend experiences to see which you ‘prefer’ assumes that the opposite experience would be the same, and that is unlikely (not impossible, but unlikely) to be true. You won’t be able to actually know what you are missing (or aren’t missing) by not being part of the community on campus on the weekends, and you won’t know how it is commuting to classes on campus during the week.
It is unlikely that your choice of apartment location will be as informed before you start as it will be once you have been enrolled for a while. Seemingly small location differences can have a surprisingly large difference. You can use your first year to learn the lay of the land, visit people already living in the apartment complexes you are considering, figuring out transport (even if you have a car, where you can park often varies by status), where your classes will be concentrated as you get into your major (as opposed to 1st year, when you are likely to have distribution requirements)., etc.
Further, depending on any restrictions on your trust (sometimes there are rules about ‘allowable’ expenses), and the absolute size of the trust, you may find that there are other things that you would appreciate having those resources available for: grad school? housing while you do a very cool but under-paid internship in NYC? study abroad? etc.
Finally, as a pretty organized person, who has been dividing her life between locations for a long while, it is harder than it seems to live in more than one place. Way too often, something you need is at the other place. When the day comes (and it will come- more than once) & you realize that something essential is in the other place and it comes down to 'do I trek over there to retrieve what I need, or do I just try and go in early / get an extension / wing it- which will you actually do?
IMO, the idea of having 2 places as a 1st year is one of those ideas that seems cooler than it would be in reality.
ps, just realized that you will be having 2 sets of roommates. Have you lived with either set before?