Apartment or Dorm?

If it is your first year, I say go with the dorms. Since you say you are going to a tech school, you probably don't have a lot to worry about. However, if you decide to go to a average joe type school, ask around about the dorms. My current school's dorms are like night and day. Yarber, which I was not it, is like nerd capital USA. I've drove by and they are out playing with toy light sabers and shit. White Hall, ironically named so, on the other hand was and is a ghetto. Drugs, assholes, stabbings, etc etc. That place had some of the shittiest openly racist bastards I have ever had the displeasure of living near. The baseball team around me wasn't that bad. Well once you got past the fact they liked to run around in their undies, and at 2 in the morning, play a nice game of slam the door, OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

I won't be in a dorm next semester if they put me back in White. Fuck white, and fuck the people who live there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by diffusionx

So it looks like everyone who is or has been in college says to stick with the dorms, while the person who is not in college is getting an apartment.

No offense to you Lobo, but you should take that into consideration Swift.

---

None taken. I would have gotten a dorm too, if it wasn't for finding an apartment that close to perfection.

And the stains.

Oh and here is a nice little pic I took from the second story window. This is right above the area that the thug bastards would hang out while waiting for their pot and easy white girls.

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...id=15570&stc=1

My sister's dorm was really shitty, too. I dont know why so many dorms are. The ones at UCLA are really good (I lived in the oldest one built, it was still really nice - and the food there is really great) and even the ones at NJIT were above average (one was kinda old-ish, but it wasnt nearly as bad as some of the other ones Ive seen).

Now, my friend's first dorm at Rutgers was fairly disgusting, but still livable.

Although I will say, living in a crummy place toughens your skin somewhat, like I did for my 5th year. I feel like I could live anywhere now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Swift

http://www.tntech.edu/reslife/halls/...n/Img_0352.jpg

I personally don't like the whole "military" thing - just having a bed, toilet, and desk - even if it is the cheaper deal.

---

You should be happy that you have a dorm with a toilet and a desk.

This isn't Saved by the Bell: the College Years. Every freshman dorm I've ever known has just been a bed and a desk.

Don't get an apartment unless you plan to stay there all the time by yourself, end up hating your roommates, and never make any friends for the entire year.

Live in the dorm to meet people for the first year or two. Even though you have friends going to the same school already, if you're all in the dorms it increases the chances of finding the new people you'll spend the next 4 years hanging out with. You miss out on so much living in an apt from the beginning, it's just not worth it. Plus, if it's horrible you can always leave the dorms and get an apt later, but it's never that easy to make it back into university housing. You usually have to get back on a wait list and then you get the shittiest pick of dorms.

I recommend living in a dorm as well. If you're not on campus it's a lot harder to make friends. You'll quickly learn who you like to hang out with and who you won't. And for where I went to school at least, a dorm was a lot cheaper. No utility bills, food is easy to get to, blah blah blah. Basically all the stuff everyone said already.

Apartment living can get dicey. If the rent is low (you said 500 or so right?) you may not have a problem, but money/bills can REALLY make things unpleasent. You could live with a deadbeat and it's going to be a complete nightmare. I have a friend who was completly fucked over by his roomates (who are frat brothers) and it's just fucking insane. I could go on but you want to live with in an apartment with people you complely trust and are financially stable for the foreseeable future.

Oh, and I got really lucky. Freshman year I basically lived with my best friends. Started out with a suite with 7 of us and then I lived with the same 3 other guys for the next 3 years. I got insanly lucky. I didn't know anyone and we just hit it off from the first day and we became like brothers. I still talk to and see many of them to this day (graduated 2 years ago).

Quote:

---

I could go on but you want to live with in an apartment with people you complely trust and are financially stable for the foreseeable future.

---

Yea and you dont know about this until your third year of college or so. I changed so fucking much my first year, hell, my first month. Its just like a tidal wave, going to college. Someone cool in September is not necessarilly gonna be the same way in November, and you dont want to be stuck for a year with him because youre in the apartment. He might get a girlfriend, stop paying bills, dick you over, etc. You put the cable in your name and youre late with a few bills because your roommates are asshats and your credit can be damaged. Ive been in the situation as a 4th year, it was tough to handle, couldnt imagine it as a freshman.

Plus theres the inevitable stupidity nearly every freshman gets involved with. Your roommate comes home drunk, throws up on the carpet, leaves a huge stain, who has to pay for it? YOU DO! Dorms are a lot more lenient with that. And you might say, "but I know these guys, theyre not party animals". Yes... theyre not, yet. But they havent been to college yet, that shit transforms people.

A lot of people you know freshman year wont be at the school by Junior year. If youre living with one of those, that person might party all the time and interfere with your schoolwork. Etc. By the third year, everyone who is gonna drop out usually has, and people are over their initial partying phase and more interested in grinding it out for the degree.

Getting an apartment with "friends" your freshman year is just walking into a fucking landmine of potential problems. And Murphy's Law says that those problems will pop up.

This one friend of mine who's going to the same college is pretty much a spoiled rich kid. He's cool and all, and he's got a good head on his shoulders, but he's been raised horribly and basically just gets what he asks for - not in a snotty way, but in more of a mommas-boy kind of a way. So today I was talking to him and I asked, "So what kind of a job are you going to get once you're in college?"

"I'm probably just not gonna get one."

"Not gonna get one? Don't you need - like - money and stuff?"

"No, my parents are gonna pay for it all."

"Well, I'm not just talking about tuition - I'm talking about the food and the bills and all that."

"No, they're gonna pay for that, too. That's what they did for my brother."

My jaw nearly dropped. If I'm lucky, though, I'll be able to mooch some money off of him when times get rough.

I'm probably not going to have a job the first 2 years either.