Not really. Thanks to Google Map.
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| Westwood. My apartment is behind the protruding tall white tower. |
2 days ago which is 2.5 weeks away from the beginning from my second year of college, I moved in to an off-campus apartment where I will sleep and cook and hopefully study for the upcoming academic year. The apartment is actually part of a complex built for graduate housing. I'm living with two graduate students in a 2B2B in which I occupy in the living room.
Without doubt, I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I feel completely insecure about my decision of choosing such an unusual housing method - usually undergrads who live off-campus are either in university apartments with other undergrads or in some nice commercial apartments. Since there is barely any undergrad living in this graduate dorm, I have no reference/guide/I can't get any first-hand information on how practically convenient it is to commute to and from main campus everyday, what it is like to live in a living room next to the kitchen, or what kind of cooking is better given small fridge space, etc.
Without doubt, I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I feel completely insecure about my decision of choosing such an unusual housing method - usually undergrads who live off-campus are either in university apartments with other undergrads or in some nice commercial apartments. Since there is barely any undergrad living in this graduate dorm, I have no reference/guide/I can't get any first-hand information on how practically convenient it is to commute to and from main campus everyday, what it is like to live in a living room next to the kitchen, or what kind of cooking is better given small fridge space, etc.
Will I be distracted by things going on in the room like cooking? Will transportation consume me a lot of time? Will bringing my own lunch and dinner really as convenient as I think? Will cooking for myself be a disastrous time and health killer?
All these questions whirling around my head make me feel unsure. To say the least, I'm not sure whether this is a wise, or even a good decision–maybe I'll be better off living on-campus like all my second-year friends are, maybe had I been willing to pay more for a single bedroom my life will be much much much more efficient.
On the other hand, there are things every time I think of them, I solidify my determination to live in where I'm right now.
First of all, I don't have to climb that goddamn hill just to grab a sandwich for togo lunch everyday. This is why I think cooking on my own at my own schedule will be more convenient - I don't have to go all the way back to the hill to wait in lines in dining halls. To avoid time wasted on walking for a total of 40 min to and from dorm or Rendezvous (grab-and-go dining hall), I used to pack my next day's lunch and dinner the night before. As I went back at around 1am to dorm after studying in the Rieber computing room or the Powell library I would stop by BCafe and get a sandwich for tomorrow's lunch and a salad bowl for tomorrow's dinner. Of course, the food would not be fresh and good as supposed to eating hot food in the dining hall on the day. But it got me through the winter quarter.
I was smarter in spring quarter to get up 8 minutes earlier to buy burrito at Rendezvous as my lunch for the day. As for dinner, ever since I quit my research position and found the life-saving Rieber computing room right next to Rende, I went get back to hill after class in the afternoon to Rieber to study for some hours, walk 5 mins to Rende for dinner, walk another 5 mins to my Hederick Summit dorm to shower, and come back to Rieber to study unitl 1 or 2am. This routine made my hill life in the spring quarter amazingly less painful.
As you may tell at this point, I like to have an almost-repetitive life routine - I like to study at the same place everyday at certain time, knowing the environment will not to distractive and there's a relatively convenient way for me to get back to dorm to eat and shower. That's when I can study most efficiently and feel that my life is under control. Of course, there will be club meetings and off-schedule events, but I'll be fine if my schedule is largely routine. Not that I don't life adventures or creativity, but simply because not having a set place to study everyday means that I have to waster time to find a *constantly* quiet study spot on campus (hint: it's hard) every time I want study, which is most of the time...
So, back to the topic of living in new apartment, one of my concerns is whether I can have quiet space to study in the room, by which I mean library-kind-of quiet.
Well, the two other graduates have their own room, so they will be out in the living room area only for cooking. Besides cooking being a potential distraction to my study, I'm also a worried about the food smell getting in to my woven closet since there's only curtain separating my space and kitchen. I hate greasy-smelling clothes. (Off-topic. I don't eat at dining hall in the winter and I often opted out not to eat at Feast or Covel (although the food is really good there) just because I didn't want coming out of the restaurant with grease smells on my clothes that won't go away for the whole day.)
First of all, I don't have to climb that goddamn hill just to grab a sandwich for togo lunch everyday. This is why I think cooking on my own at my own schedule will be more convenient - I don't have to go all the way back to the hill to wait in lines in dining halls. To avoid time wasted on walking for a total of 40 min to and from dorm or Rendezvous (grab-and-go dining hall), I used to pack my next day's lunch and dinner the night before. As I went back at around 1am to dorm after studying in the Rieber computing room or the Powell library I would stop by BCafe and get a sandwich for tomorrow's lunch and a salad bowl for tomorrow's dinner. Of course, the food would not be fresh and good as supposed to eating hot food in the dining hall on the day. But it got me through the winter quarter.
I was smarter in spring quarter to get up 8 minutes earlier to buy burrito at Rendezvous as my lunch for the day. As for dinner, ever since I quit my research position and found the life-saving Rieber computing room right next to Rende, I went get back to hill after class in the afternoon to Rieber to study for some hours, walk 5 mins to Rende for dinner, walk another 5 mins to my Hederick Summit dorm to shower, and come back to Rieber to study unitl 1 or 2am. This routine made my hill life in the spring quarter amazingly less painful.
As you may tell at this point, I like to have an almost-repetitive life routine - I like to study at the same place everyday at certain time, knowing the environment will not to distractive and there's a relatively convenient way for me to get back to dorm to eat and shower. That's when I can study most efficiently and feel that my life is under control. Of course, there will be club meetings and off-schedule events, but I'll be fine if my schedule is largely routine. Not that I don't life adventures or creativity, but simply because not having a set place to study everyday means that I have to waster time to find a *constantly* quiet study spot on campus (hint: it's hard) every time I want study, which is most of the time...
So, back to the topic of living in new apartment, one of my concerns is whether I can have quiet space to study in the room, by which I mean library-kind-of quiet.
Well, the two other graduates have their own room, so they will be out in the living room area only for cooking. Besides cooking being a potential distraction to my study, I'm also a worried about the food smell getting in to my woven closet since there's only curtain separating my space and kitchen. I hate greasy-smelling clothes. (Off-topic. I don't eat at dining hall in the winter and I often opted out not to eat at Feast or Covel (although the food is really good there) just because I didn't want coming out of the restaurant with grease smells on my clothes that won't go away for the whole day.)
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| "Hederick Summit"dorm is where I lived last year. "Weyburn Terrace" is where I'm living at. Mouse is pointing to where I usually stay on main campus. |
tl;dr. So pretty much, the benefits of living here are that
- I can eat on campus (I spend a lot of time on main campus) whenever I want because I can pack my food in the morning.
- I don't have to go up and down the hill and end up in sweating shirt every day - although I'm not sure how it will be to go to school from my apartment; we'll see tomorrow.
- I also don't have to waste swipes for eating elsewhere than dining halls (for club meetings, talks, conferences, or going home over long weekend) and I pay for what I put into my mouth, as supposed to spending a $9 worth of swipe to get two bottles of water.
- Living here makes it slightly more convenient to walk to my orthodontics office.
- Potentially I'll have a quiet study place, as unless as said cooking becomes a distraction. I don't have to try to do everything to avoid the noisy kids in the lounge.
- I'll learn to cooking efficiently earlier on in life rather than waiting until my third year which I imagine I'll be crazy busy to learn to cook properly–not that I'm not busy now...Just less busy by a tiny margin which will be devoted to cooking attempts.
- Lastly, I'll learn the pros and cons of living independently so that I can make a more informed and hopefully better choice next year!
The cons are that I will need to get abound 20-30 min in 3 out of 7 days of the week to cook meals and wash dishes. I will also need to spend 2 hour-ish almost every weekend except when mom visits to commute to and shop at grocery store.
The overall math is:
- On-campus
- Saving 40 min transportation time back and forth for lunch on the hill * 5 days/week = 3.33...hours.
- Off-campus
- Spending 25 min cooking time * 3 days/week at most = 1.25 hr, and
- 2 hr grocery shopping * 1 day/week => 3.25 hours.
So the time spent is about the same, with the off-campus housing having more flexibility with eating time.
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| Day 1 of "cooking": steaming Lo Mai Gai (leftover from yesterday) and spinach. |
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| Day 2 of "cooking": Toasted burger buns, roasted BBQ pork ribs (leftover brought from home), spinach, and grapes. |
As for living here vs. other off-campus housing options, my rent is significantly cheaper than the average $800 rent + $50 internet/utilities fee for most if not all the apartments within the diameter of 20 min walking distance from school. This is because this apartment complex is still regulated by University, so there are no utilities fee and the internet options the the same free ones on-campus. The commercial or even the undergrad university apartments are highly overpriced for profits, whereas my rent is here is just set by the two other graduate roommates who were looking to relieve their financial burden. Plus, it's safer here since this is a graduate housing place. My living quarter, although only enclosed by a 2 sheets of curtain which separates me and the rest of living room including the kitchen, is actually pretty spacious. I think I have more private space then any dorms on the hill, even the single rooms.
tl;dr. Considering what people living in other types of apartment have to face: higher rent, same if not smaller living space, and less safe area. My current place seems to be not that bad.
Money-wise, which is actually the top factor in my consideration for housing method, is almost the same for living on-campus and off-campus in a living room to me. My university grant was reduced because apparently, the school has "less budget for students living off-campus". Had I known the amount they were going to take out of my grant, I would NOT choose off-campus housing. Unfortunately, students don't get fin-aid notification until 2 months before school starts by when students have already settled on a housing method for the year. Looking back, I should have talked to a school fin-aid counselor before I natively decided that living in a cheap living room and cooking for myself would save more money.
LESSON LEARNED: Always try to make informed decision and do not natively assume what will and what will not follow, even if it seems obvious.
LESSON LEARNED: Always try to make informed decision and do not natively assume what will and what will not follow, even if it seems obvious.
At the end, I guess this adds a layer of significance to my upcoming 20th birthday –I've finally become living-independent before I turn 20 (still not financially independent though = my next year's goal). Man, I really don't know how this will turn out. Living in a comfortable and convenient place is vital for college life, I hope I won't freak out here and that I've made a somewhat reasonable decision. We'll see.
Until next time...
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Until next time...
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P.S. Living off-campus is nevertheless more interesting as the "scenery" is definitely more exciting than the walk back to school dorms. (It depends how one defines "exciting", but I assume most people would prefer seeing exotic restaurants and various shops than sweating swarms of college students)
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Walking back from my orthodontics office.
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