<p>I'm a college student living at home and commuting, and one thing I've noticed (in real life and CC) is this attitude that if you live at home you won't become a mature, capable adult like those who move away. </p>
<p>The U.S.A is one of the few cultures where this exists - in most of the world, college stuents live at home and go to a local university and yet those people living at home in other countries seem to become mature adults just fine. </p>
<p>I would hardly say most of my peers are more mature than me because they're living in a 10x10 closet in Manhattan and getting wasted and hooking up every other night. I can't stay out til 4 am and get wasted and stagger back to my dorm and throw up everywhere like some of my friends do. I have to wake up at 6 AM to catch the train to class. </p>
<p>Yet I notice this attitude when I tell people I live at home and people act like dorming is the way to become a mature adult and living at home prevents this - I just don't get this. If anything, I have a lot more responsibility than my dorm friends as I manage classes, social life, part-time job on top of family responsibilities and commuting - so where do people get this attitude from? Have other at-home commuters noticed this?</p>
<p>But I don’t think i’m an outlier - most of my college friends dorm, but as a commuter i’m part of some organizations like Commuter Circle and Off-campus student council, and one thing i’ve noticed is the dormers kind of seem less mature. They’ll stagger into class 20 mins late in their PJ’s even though they live across the street, whereas I’m coming from 40 mins away and show up on time…dressed too </p>
<p>I don’t know, wee discuss stuff like this in Commuter Circle sometimes, the differences we notice between the on-campus and off-campus freshman. I guess they engage in more immature behavior because they know their parents can’t see them?</p>
<p>well who’s the one saying you’re not? was he a dormer? :D</p>
<p>being in a family environment is pretty nice because it’s easier to stay grounded and away from the craziness of college life. being away is challenging because suddenly you have to adjust to a different environment and provide for stuff on your own…of course the pinnacle of maturity is if you can live away from home and <em>still</em> act as mature as you did at home</p>
<p>think of being away from home as a handicap, so to speak…if you can overcome it, it proves your maturity, but a lot of people don’t really overcome it because they were not that mature to begin with. those are the ones you see drinking and partying and being irresponsible.</p>
<p>Well, you and I and are clearly polar opposites, despite the fact that we both live at home. I’ve lived in the same room for all 20 years of my life. I don’t have much in the way of responsibilities at home. I don’t work. I only have three hours of classes, five days a week. I feel trapped in a perpetual adolescence, although I admit I am mostly to blame. I definitely feel that the comforts of home are not helping, though. I don’t NEED to work, and don’t even bother looking these days with the economic situation. Deep down I want to be on my own, making a living, and earning my keep. As a student, I feel undeserving and spoiled; a leach on society and my father. </p>
<p>College(at least the last two years I’ve been at Community College) feels like a prolonged pit stop that’s not very gratifying on its own. Living at home and going to Community College doesn’t help. I like the curriculum, but socially, there’s nothing here. There’s no experience to be found. I feel like a child at 20. It still feels a bit like high school, without the cliques. Maybe when I transfer and live on my own my outlook will improve. I can only hope.</p>
<p>Maybe we’re talking about outliers on both ends? Because I certainly go to class dressed, and am always there on time, and it takes all of 2 minutes to get there from my dorm. (I think Freshman get bad reputations for going a little extra-wild being away from home for the first time)
But occasionally I feel different from my boyfriend because he lives at home. But less mature isn’t even the right term I’d give it. We just haven’t had the same experience of being away from home yet. His mom still feeds him and does his laundry and he hasn’t had to grapple with a lot of the problems that being away from home shoves in your face. So he’s not emotionally less mature at all, we’re just in different social stages of moving into adulthood? This was especially frustrating for the first month, when I was having so many problems and issues that went along with being away from my family, and having the whole idea of home disappear, but he had no way of understanding what I felt.</p>
<p>So yeah, it’s not that people think those who live at home during college are less “grown-up,” at all, it’s just that we lack the immediate shared experience of living away from home, maybe?</p>
<p>I hope none of this came off as condescending, I’m just trying to think out loud about why it might be the case?</p>
<p>fixiz2 - i agree with your post. i’m talking about a general attitude i’ve noticed (and several people i’ve met have said/implied this, including my high school friends who dorm).</p>
<p>yeah I guess home situation makes a big difference. My parents expect me to babysit my sister all the time as well as my grandpa, who recently moved in with us, on top of managing a part-time job, classes, social life/boyfriend…and I cook most of my own meals and have done my laundry as well as my sisters since I was like 12 lol…I don’t need to work, but my parents are already footing my college tuition and i’d feel like too much of a leech without having a part-time job. </p>
<p>eternal icicle - i bet it’s cause all my classes are so early, it seems like everyone shows up late and often in pj pants I always end up in class early because of the train schedule, and I look out the window and watch an army of kids in sweats clutching starbucks lattes complaining about how early it is, marching in from down the street. I like early classes back to back so I can get them out of the way and it just fits with my work/commute schedule.</p>
Why do people seem to think living at home means you’re less mature?
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The issue is just that people feel that moving out automatically makes them more mature, when it actually doesn’t. Like fizix2 said, you’ve only increased in maturity if you successfully handle the increased difficulties that come with living away from home.</p>
<p>Moving out just gives you an opportunity to find out whether you’re more mature. The only people that really benefit from the experience are those that use it as an opportunity to change themselves for the better, and that’s definitely not something you see often.</p>
<p>Most people just move out because of a) geographical constraints of going to a far-away college (which is perfectly valid) or b) to get away from their parents, which is immature itself. I’m a commuter as well, and I fail to grasp why some of the people from my high school and other nearby high schools who are also going to my college are staying in the dorms. I find it to be an enormous waste of time, effort, and money. I don’t find myself all that socially hindered by the fact that I live ~15 minutes away, rather than 5 minutes away; perhaps things are different for those with longer commutes.</p>
<p>Time is the most important consideration - there are many more productive things I want to be doing with my time (mainly research) than fighting with my roommate, waiting in line to do laundry, or lying awake at night unable to fall asleep because my roommate is playing loud music, hooking up with some random girl just 5 feet away, or puking his intestines out after getting lit up like a Christmas tree at the weekly frat party.</p>
<p>Sometimes the more responsibility that is thrust upon you, the more mature you become. You may in fact become more mature when you need to commute for an hour each day and figure out how to get things done while you’re on campus, etc. Or you may become more mature when you have to handle your problems yourself and your parents are far enough away.</p>
<p>Sometiemes the dorms remind me of little day-care centers. You know, food always being prepared for you (it’s all prepaid for too), employees cleaning up the bathroom, all bills being already taken care of. But I think there are some aspects that force you to grow, mostly the no parents thing (doing your own laundry, meeting deadline yourself).</p>
<p>Living off-campus certainly makes you more mature. You have to get and make your own food, acquire your own furnishings (bed, couches, chairs, desks, tables) commute a little bit, pay for utilities, set up cable/ internet, keep everything clean yourself - you know basically live like an adult.</p>
<p>But anyway, I’m in Australia studying abroad right now (in an apartment - I have to cook/ clean but they come furnished) - but uh… most local Australians live in a dorm or in student apartments - so it’s pretty close to America in that regard.</p>
<p>I’m planning on living at home (though my commute should be in the range of about 10 minutes), though most people going to a local college (there’s 3 big ones in this area all within a 20 min. drive of pretty everyone who goes to my school) are going to live on campus. At my house, I have my own room, and it’s free, so it just makes sense to me to live at home.</p>
<p>What most people say is that they want more freedom, which could seem like maturity, but I don’t think it really is. Most people have covered that already, but I would like to add that doing something as financially irresponsible as paying 10K a year (or whatever it costs) to share a tiny room on campus with someone when you have a free place to stay with your parents just 10 minutes away doesn’t seem like a mature choice to me.</p>
<p>You hit it on the nail in your first post. This is mostly an American thing as going away for college is not the custom in other countries. It’s really just ignorance and condescension from the part of those people who react that way. They are brought up to think the only way to success and maturity is by going away to college. That’s not the case of course.</p>
<p>It’s silly. If you can and want to go away, it is still a privilege…however in some cases it may be cheaper than living at home (depends on scholarships etc). It should never be attributed to how mature or immature you are…in fact, going away may often be a reflection of immaturity and the need to break away physically so that you can grow up and break away emotionally. so just don’t listen. The ‘away for college’ experience is not completely unique to America but the dorm lifestyle is not replicated in many countries, nor is the frat/sorority system…</p>
<p>I totally agree. I think the decision to take a train, and commute for 40 minutes each way shows a lot more maturity than simply moving on-campus to get away from your parents. I would never dream of demanding an extra $10,000 a year, if a free room was an option.</p>
<p>I don’t think staying at home means that a student is less mature. But it does mean he can be less mature than kids who are living away from home. There is a lot more leeway on things at home as the family does often take care of those things. In fact, I felt that my oldest was not maturing and taking responsibilities as he should while he was living at home after college. </p>
<p>Just things like he could dump his stuff in the common rooms without the risk of it being stolen (and likely to be put away for him by someone else when he is so careless), help himself to common family items like food, drink, etc that are just there. He also had us around to help out if he found himself needing a ride, a few bucks, etc, etc. We had to make an effort to not get him too used to these things, since as a family we naturally help each other out in the course of events. </p>
<p>My son currently lives pretty much across the country from us. He has had to learn to live with a stranger, handle his finances, take care of his necessities without any reminder or help from us. A big learning experience for him. When he runs out of shampoo, there is none in the vanity that he can grab. If he doesn’t do his laundry, he has only dirty clothes to wear. If he does not set his alarm, he is likely to miss class. If he’s not feeling well, he has to go to the infirmary and take care of himself. I have 5 kids so I don’t hover as much as many parents I know, but just in the course of a day, I am reminding, helping doing, for everyone at home. There may be kids who do not have such a support network at home, and it is more work for them to have to deal with family needs at home, but for my kids moving into a dorm meant more personal responsibilities.</p>
<p>My other son currently goes to a high school that is located on a college campus. He takes the train and commutes. If he should go that college, which is a consideration, and if he did not move on campus, his life would change very little from the way it has been since he was 14 and started ninth grade. Really, it was not that big of a jump from his lower school day. There are many kids we know who do go to that college from high school, and from their moms tell me, the change from high school to college was hardly noticeable to them. Not at all like going away to school.</p>
<p>I will say that living in the dorms did only one thing – awaken me to how nice it is to live in my own room. </p>
<p>The only thing dorm life did for me is just make me less picky with everything, because honestly, sleeping conditions (roommates with different timings), food, etc, all were pretty bad. I did not feel healthy at all during my freshman year. And feel much healthier now. You’re being smart and avoiding the mess. I didn’t really meet many people through dorms anyway. Met more people through classes + friends of friends.</p>
<p>Living alone did change me though in some definitive ways. That doesn’t mean that there’s an excuse to be condescending though. We’ve had this discussion – people love to be condescending before they even have anything to be condescending about: “I am brave, and braved the hardships of college dorm life.” How pathetic, go slay a dragon first will ya ;)</p>
<p>Well I live alone in an apartment (though some people rack it up as living at home since my parents pay) and I’m as immature as they get.
I still watch Arthur and Clifford the Big Red Dog.
I love Spongebob.
I go to bed at 10pm. My bedroom looks like a 10 year-old girl lives there.
And I still call my parents to take care of things that I’d rather not.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t equate living at home (especially if you’re in the typical-college age) as less mature. Or living away from home as more mature.</p>
<p>The story might ring a little different if the person in question were, say 35.</p>
<p>If you attend college as a commuter from your home, I don’t see it as being less mature. Although my preference, I would not attend a university where I cant stay on campus.</p>
<p>I could live at home if i wanted to, but NYU is expensive and we’re not getting any FA. I’d feel guilty asking my parents for an extra $12K when I could live at home for free. Plus after frosh year, NYU dorms get far away, so they’re not really “on campus” anyway (we don’t have a campus). I wouldn’t want to go to college in my hometown, but I’m from a suburb outside Manhattan so I still get the new environment of NYC even if I’m not living there. </p>
<p>I guess it really depends on how your family is. I’m like the cleanest person in my house lol and i’ve been doing laundry since Middle School, but yeah, I guess if you live at home like a slob, you’re not really growing up. I feel like living at home gives me more resonpsibility cause on top of classes/job I have to always babysit my sister and help her do her homework, clean the house, drop her off places (i’m like a live-in nanny lol).</p>
<p>“I would hardly say most of my peers are more mature than me because they’re living in a 10x10 closet in Manhattan and getting wasted and hooking up every other night.”</p>
<p>But that is one of the best parts of college!(the hooking up every night part)</p>
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