The best college experience I have had so far is moving on campus this year. I was a commuter student my first year, so this is a major game changer! My roommates have become really great friends of mine. I have been able to develop a much better social aspect to my college experience. Most importantly, living on campus has made everything so much easier.
Having had a bad roommate experience during my summer start program before freshman year, I was terrified of living on campus. I know I can be a bit complicated to live with, so maybe my bad experience was not entirely their fault. After that experience, I decided that living at home for my first year was best. I was actually planning to save money and live at home for all four years, but deciding to live on campus this year has by far been the best decision I have made.
Let’s begin with my roommates. These girls are by far the absolute best! Luckily, I was placed with not only my perfect roommate matches, but also my new lifelong friends. I have been able to develop tight friendships with these girls over the course of the past two-and-a-half months, and I cannot be more thankful. We go grocery shopping together, we sit in the living room watching Grey’s Anatomy together, we study together, and we even cook together. I have been able to develop a sisterhood that I do not have at home since my only sister is 11 years younger that I am. These girls help me keep my sanity and provide a support system I did not have at home.
The social aspect of my college experience has definitely expanded since I have been living on campus. I am able to spend extra time with people at school because I can go to my dorm and then to extracurricular activities without dreading the amount of gas and time needed for commuting. I used to hate when my classes ended at 2 p.m. and a meeting would not start until 7:30 p.m. It would be a debate of whether to stay in the library for the next five hours or waste gas going home and coming back for just an hour. That was a big reason why I did not join student organizations my first year. Now I am in three organizations and I love them! I am also able to go to late evening study groups. In general, I have a better sense of the VCU community, and it’s definitely a better experience than going to class and then either going straight home or to work.
Things have been so much easier now that I live on campus compared to when I was living at home. I have Latinx parents and they have always wanted the best for me to succeed, but at the same time they don’t always know what’s best. They never realized that just because I still lived at home, I didn’t run on their schedule. I have my own school, meeting, job, homework and social life schedules. They do not understand that I am neither a teenager nor an all-knowing adult. They either saw me as a 13-year-old with many rules to follow or a 30-year-old with BIG responsibilities. To them, there was no in between. I am an adult in the sense that I have my own set of responsibilities such as school and work. They expected me to continue my pre-college responsibilities, but with my college schedule, I couldn’t always take my sister to school or help around the house, so I spent a lot of time in my room or at the library at school to avoid arguing with my parents. Altogether, it was just constant stress. School stress. Work stress. Now, home stress? Moving out has improved my well-being and my family relationships.
Overall, moving on campus has been one of the best experiences I have had since I started college. If I would have known how awesome my roommates and the experience would be, then I would not have hesitated to live on campus! I do often miss my family, but I see them almost every weekend, so it’s okay. Finding my “space” was much needed and I cannot be happier with how living on campus has turned out.
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