<p>I was wondering what the advantages and disadvantages of living in a dorm are. </p>
<p>My parents live 5 miles (15 minute drive) away from the school. I have been accepted into the honors college and I will be doing engineering. I will be paying OOS tuition first year and then IS tuition thereafter. </p>
<p>any takers?</p>
<p>DORM. It is crucial to the college experience. I promise, if you live at home, you won’t feel like you’re really in college.</p>
<p>A professor at UMD I know highly recommends going from home. He says there are too many distractions and the kids who dorm are not that great. The kids who do the best academically are the ones who chose not to dorm, he claims.</p>
<p>My parents want to save money by having me go from home.</p>
<p>I’m personally leaning towards dorming because, like you said, it is essential for the college experience.</p>
<p>Can you refute any of the above claims?</p>
<p>I would wait until you get MD rates to dorm. Since you are so close, just commute and save your parents some money. You can be on campus all you want and leave when you want. No real need to sleep there.</p>
<p>I guess saving money is a good reason, but I don’t think it’s fair of that professor to stereotype all of the kids in the dorms. I HIGHLY doubt that all of the students that live there are weak academically, especially since it’s harder to get in OOS and generally if you live OOS it’s nearly impossible to commute. I understand the thing about distractions but there are other places to study… that’s what the library’s for. I’m sure there are plenntty of kids in the dorms who make it work.</p>
<p>Besides socializing (I mean come on. Your an engineer in the making now, this isn’t a priority lol) there are plenty of things that are just inconvenient. </p>
<p>A specific example is your (<strong><em>spoiler alert</em></strong>) hovercraft project in ENES100 where just about everything goes wrong and you’ll have to meet up with your teammates at a bunch of weird (and some spontaneous) hours.</p>
<p>However I’m a money pincher so I can’t say I would stay in the dorms. Tough call. If you do decide to stay at home, make sure to go the extra mile in meeting people. Almost all of the friends I have now, I made first semester (curse asocial CS majors!)</p>
<p>We just got back from taking our son and 4 friends out for early birthday dinner. They are all sophmore engineering students, all met through living in Honors housing last year in Denton. 3 of the 5 have a 4.0 cumulative and all 5 have made Deans list each semester. They all play intermural sports, one has a part time job, 2 are fraternity brothers and 3 just pledged. They have such a strong sense of community because of meeting in the dorm. If you can dorm, do it. Not sure how much smarter the kids can be who are commuting, and they sure aren’t having as much fun in the total college experience</p>