<p>So I am contemplating whether or not i should live on campus. At the moment I am about a 20 minute drive to the college, but we may be moving making is a 30 minute drive. I can save about 7,000 dollars a year by living at home, plus its nicer, better food and what not. The thing that concerns me is... will i be missing out on the true college experience? Will I have a harder time making friends and getting involved because i don't live there? I am still planning on doing intramurals and participating in activities the college has to offer. Im not a big partier so I don't mind missing out on all that. I do think it would be easier to work with others if i lived there and it would be nice to have all the campus stuff right next to me. </p>
<p>I like my family and home, they treat me well, but like i said it seems that there may be many things i am missing out on, but is that really worth $7,000 a year?</p>
<p>I’m planning on living at home and 4 other people I know at my school (3 of us are all going to the same college, 1 to another nearby college) are going to live at home, and this is out of less than 10 people I know of going to a nearby college. However we’ll all be just 5-10 min away. </p>
<p>Take what it costs to live there, and subtract the cost of gas (and car if you wouldn’t otherwise have one), and the vaule of an extra hour a day of study time. Decide if that amount is worth the experience of living on campus to you. The amount you save my be less than 7K (unless you’ve already done this and 7K was the result), and since you’re already unsure…</p>
<p>I pretty much agree with Coolbrezze. I know I’d regret it heavily if I didn’t.</p>
<p>All the time, I hear from my dad that he wishes he had lived on campus at least his first year, but now it’s just one of the things he’ll never get to do.</p>
<p>The first time I went to college I didn’t live on campus but then again I really didn’t have many friends that I went to my school (most of them were going to other universities or just working). It’s not impossible to have friends if you are still living at home. You may be alienating yourself from certain people but who cares? There will be others to compensate.</p>
<p>Do you have the means to spend $7,000 on housing? If you do then you should consider it. If it’s too much of a stretch then it’s best to stay in an environment that is cheaper. It’s a lot harder to attend activities if you are living off campus though.</p>
<p>I guess it depends on your priorities. If you want to experience dorm room life then maybe you should try it out a year. I tried it out last year and absolutely HATED it.</p>
<p>Well i would most likely have to take loans out to do this, if i didn’t i would have to be working full time while in college… which means i probably wouldn’t have much time to other stuff anyways. The college only gave me a certain number of student loans and my parent don’t want to cosign on any loans because of credit… so i might have to work either way. </p>
<p>The school also gave me some work-study money… i think this would be alot easier if i was there also. I just keep going back and forth… im their for education not fun, but another part of me says why not have fun in the proccess… but is it really that hard to get involved while off campus. Nearly all the freshman are staying on campus this year because its a school policy but they do make exceptions for people in my position. So i just don’t know yet, in a bit im going to do a detailed estimation on expenses including everything… transportation, gas… ect.</p>
<p>Well i have a car right now, my parents said they will pay for insurance and payments as long as im still in school full time… but if i live on campus i will most likely still want to keep my car as i will probably have a job and stuff, plus the bus system is sometime inconvenient. But none the less i will have to pay alot more for gas driving to college everyday… so tonight im going to figure this all out.</p>
<p>I think you should do what’s the best for you. If the 7K is too much of a problem for you, stay at home the 1st year. If you really don’t like staying at home, dorm in the 2nd year. I mean, we don’t your money problems/obligations, so we can’t really decide for you.</p>
<p>If you’re only 10 minutes away, live at home. There’s minimal benefit to living on campus if you try hard enough. You’ll make friends, you’ll have time to study, and you’ll be saving loads of money. All you have to do is time-management and put yourself out there.</p>
<p>My parent are paying for my car because its technically theirs they just let me use it and they want to help me out a bit more. They are also giving me about 4k a year towards college in general, i can use it however i want.</p>
<p>Svcreddy - thanks for the advice, i just wanted to get some advice from some people who have possibily had the experience and could tell me if its really worth it or not.</p>
<p>Colboy - It would probabaly more like 20 or even 30 minutes away, if that makes a difference.</p>
<p>I don’t think 20 or 30 minutes will make a difference. I’m not a commuter myself but I know a lot of them. They said they are just fine with it and don’t feel like they are missing out. They told me that all you need to do is to be the one who makes plans with people. You won’t have the luxury to develop bonds with people just because you live near them. You must talk to people in classes/clubs and ask them to eat lunch or other plans to develop relationships.</p>
<p>Honestly, I don’t see the glamor in living on campus unless you like to get drunk all the time in which you won’t be able to drive yourself home. I even think there are more downsides than upsides depending on the kind of person you are. Some negative things that come to mind are my obnoxious neighbors who like to sing late at night, the communal bathrooms, roommate problems and privacy, laundry, and the limited amount of items in your dorm.</p>
<p>Oh and another thing. You will still have all the nice campus stuff! Just because you live in a dorm doesn’t mean you can’t go to the dining halls or libraries. You can chill with people anywhere on campus. You get there in the morning, do all your stuff, and just go home to sleep.</p>
<p>One of the reasons to live on campus is to separate yourself from your family. At least for me, I get a lot more work done when I’m in my dorm rather than at home. There are too many distractions at home and it’s hard for be to get stuff done.</p>
<p>True i think im leaning towards staying at home, I just worked on my finances put all of my factors into excel and i came out with around 6,750 to live there, which is about what i expected. Like you said staying on campus probably isn’t all what its cracked up to be, and since i don’t like to drink or party a whole lot, it may not be for me anyhow. I can just do what you said, go up for my classes in the morning and hang out on campus all day if i need to, go to the rec, library, or whatever then go home late. Now i didn’t take into consideration my time, since it could be up to a 30min commute that would be an hour out of my day everyday. If i consider that i was working at lets say $8.50 an hour… that would be like 1,500 worth of my time. So i definitely havn’t made up my mind, but i may be leaning towards staying home. All i know is i need to figure it out soon or i will end up with a junk dorm if i decide to do that. Thanks for all the replies, believe it or not, but this is helping.</p>
<p>I lived at home for my first two years (it was about a 45 minute commute) and I live in an apartment right next to school this year (junior year). Since my school has an urban campus, there are a lot more people that live in apartments in the city than in dorms.</p>
<p>Honestly, living at home for my first two years didn’t make a big difference. I still got involved a lot and I made a lot of great friends. Basically, I was in school all day and I just went home to sleep (I often ate at school).</p>