I’m going to be transferring to Cornell this fall as a sophomore and didn’t get regular housing. Instead, I got temporary housing on North Campus (1st year campus). I’m considering living off-campus instead, since I lived in dorms all of high school and again my freshman year (I went to a fairly small LAC).
I know a lot of people seem to value the dorms as an “experience” for building social connections, but my freshman year, I didn’t form a single friendship in my dorm other than my roommates. I feel like I made most of my friends in classes or clubs, and if I lived in the same dorm as them that was just a sidenote. Another concern is that this on-campus assignment is temporary. I think it’s a study lounge converted to a quintuple, but I’ve heard that it’s a pretty big space. I will eventually be moved to a permanent room, but there is no information on where this would be or when it would happen because it would be into a room another student has left.
I am living in an apartment this summer with one housemate and personally like this a lot better than the dorms, especially since I like having a kitchen and haven’t had a room to myself in 5 years. I am looking at an apartment right near campus with two other transfer sophomores. My parents seem to strongly want me to live on campus, I think for social reasons and because the school is large. Am I missing something about living on-campus that everyone seems to love so much?
Freshmen in the freshman dorms are all at the same stage socially, so have a common incentive to get to know each other. But once they make those connections they are no longer as receptive to new people. IMO that’s why the upperclassmen dorm my D2 lived in when she transferred in was not that friendly. She made friends, but initially it was from among a group of fellow transfer students. Then afterwards she lived in a Collegetown apartment, and everyone in the house became friends, pretty much.
What you don’t want to be is living alone at a large campus where you don’t know anyone. Because it’s hard to meet people when there is no natural way to interact with the same people repeatedly.
If you go in with a bunch of fellow transfer students that may not be so bad.
Maybe look into whether an opening develops at on of the co-ops. These are intimate living units, much smaller than a dorm. The close quarters lead to actually interacting repeatedly with the same people, which leads to actually knowing them and establishing relationships.
Being in the freshman dorm may not be that bad either. Yes they are a year younger, but that’s not so much, and like you they are all new to the campus. I assume you don’t have problems interacting with freshmen.
It might even be an advantage. When I attended there were some kids that stayed as sophomores in my otherwise freshman dorm, and they did pretty well socially, from what I saw. They got "dibs’ on meeting a bunch of freshman women. (sorry if that’s a bit crass but there it is…)
You might want to look into Cornell specifically and ask around in the dorms, but my experience has been this. I found that freshman dorms are great for making communities, but part of that has to do with the fact that everyone is new and is looking to make friends in one way or another. So dorms provide a good way to have those people congregate in one place and have spaces to getting to know eachother. In my experience at my college, upperclassmen dorms do not necessarily have the same vibe and people tend to stick to themselves more – or they don’t know eachother as well. RA’s can be good at hosting events and such, but again it may not be as frequent or widely attended as a freshman dorm. It sounds like you are comfortable and happy with living off campus, and the housing situation is weird. I think you will be able to build your own community through clubs and the other transfer roommates – which could be a plus! And you will have more of your own space and can invite people over to hang out.
I was an RA in college, so generally I am biased towards on-campus housing because they can be great community builders, but it sounds like off-campus housing might be good for you and fit all your preferences.
Thinking about it:
If you go to the apartment right away you’ll have better housing, and you might strike up friendships with a few of your fellow transfers, and maybe otherers in the house. But that’s not so many people.
If you go to the freshman dorm you’ll be living in a dorm again. But there’s the opportunity of meeting a lot more students. And more students who are not transfers. The only thing is they will be freshman so the relationship may be different/less complete. We had less to do with the sophomores who lived in my freshman dorm, But not nothing either. We still got to know them, and vica versa, You might even strike up a friendship with some RAs there.
And then if you get re-deployed second semester you’ll get to meet the people in the next place too.
So there’s the possibility of gaining a broader infrastructure of acquaintances via the dorm route. Albeit freshman acquaintances.
But that might not pan out, due to your different status, and then you’re just stuck in a dorm again with people you have little in common with. Or you just can’t stand living in a freshman dorm all over again. In that case you might have been better off in an apartment with some of your fellow transfer students.
So who knows. Make your choice and hope for the best.