Apartment or Dorm?
For those living on campus, soon enough we will be choosing where we are going to live next year. There are a variety of options when it comes to where you can live. I for one lived in a dorm both my freshman and sophomore year and it very much differs from the apartment style that I have become fairly accustomed to this year.
However, both dorms and apartments have their pros and cons.
Dorms
Pros
The dorm lifestyle is definitely fun for a lot of reasons. Living in a dorm allows you to interact with others more since you get to see people on your floor just in passing. The dorm experience makes socializing rather simple since it is likely there is always someone around. Usually, if you live in a dorm it comes with a meal plan, so this means you do not have to do any cooking yourself. Whenever you’re feeling hungry, you can just run to the dining hall and grab yourself some food without any fuss.
Cons
Since dorm rooms are often small, this means you have to use communal bathrooms. Communal bathrooms are not fun, especially when there are limited showers. This means you can get all your stuff together for a shower, but end up having to wait. Not to mention having to wear flip flops in the shower is never something you want to do.
Another con is having to eat dining hall food all the time. Even though cooking can be a pain, sometimes we do not want dining hall food and want a homemade meal. Lastly, privacy is kind of difficult when you are in a hallway full of students. Dorms are typically small, so the living space provided is not that much. This means when people come to your room they can only sit at your desk or on your bed.
Apartments
Pros
Apartments are great for the simple reason that you have much more space and living room than you do in a dorm. I know in my apartment I am hardly ever in my bedroom and am constantly hanging out with my roommates in the living room, watching TV and lounging. Apartments are great for those who want to have more room and sort of be more on their own. With apartment living, you can make your own food, which means you can make food that you are guaranteed to enjoy. The biggest pro, in my opinion, is the fact that you have your own bathroom.
Cons
Since you are the one doing all the cooking, at times it can be annoying on days you are feeling lazier. Cooking can become a hassle especially when you create a lot of dishes and have to clean them all. Having an apartment means you probably will not socialize as much as you do in a dorm. Although you have more space in an apartment, that also means you have more to clean when things get messy. Probably the biggest con is having to move in and out of the apartment because there is typically a lot of stuff to be moved around.
Both apartments and dorms have great qualities and not so great qualities. However, this means you have to decide which features are more important to you. If you do not like cooking at all then maybe an apartment style is not for you. Yet if having more space is more important to you, I would definitely advise considering living in an apartment.
All in all living in a dorm is a great experience because you get that social aspect while living in an apartment gives you the independent aspect.