Living at home/away for college

[moonwise]

Recently, I read this article on CNN about living at home during college:

Students staying at home can strain household

The percentage of students staying at home while attending school surprised me - the article puts the number at 37% or higher. This really surprised me, since I have always felt that leaving home and not living with your parents was part of the essential college experience. Even if you went to school close to home, part of the college thing was not going home to mom'n'dad at night.

I'll admit that I couldn't wait to get out of the house at the end of college, as my mom and I were fighting a lot. One of the reasons we get along better now is that we're not living together (e.g. she's a neat freak, and I'm a total slob.) I also wanted to get out of South Jersey like whoa, and even though I only went as far as New Brunswick, it was far enough.

The article points to financial reasons for most students, and that was certainly the case for one friend of mine who lived at home while attending Villanova (no one any of you know.) His parents were divorced, and neither would give a penny more than the other for P's education. It spawned something of a chicken-or-egg argument after a while, because P has managed to alienate most of the roommates he's ever had post-college (with the exception of his wife, of course): is he hard to live with because he never had to learn to get along with anyone during college, or is he just hard to live with anyway?

So I pose the question to you, friendslist - did you live at home or away during college/university (or are you planning to live home/or away?) Do you think it had a positive or a negative impact? Why did you make the choice you did?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Talk about yourselves; that's what LJ is for!

Comments

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Did you get on better with your parents once you moved out? Relationships can change a lot once you're not driving one another crazy every day.

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

I think part of the college experience is experiencing college. It's more than just classes - it's student life, it's the library, it's meeting friends, it's bad overpriced food, it's sneaking past proctors, it's doing stupid shit you'll never again get to do in your life.

College is a precious time between childhood and adulthood - you're old enough to do all the naughty things you've finally wanted to do, but you're still a young, dumb kid, so you can write off bad experiences (and arrests, etc.) to "Meh, I didn't know better then." And while finances are a bit of a crunch for a lot of people, I just don't think you get that same feeling if you have to drive home to your parents at the end of the day.

Rowan was only 30 minutes away, so it was really up in the air for a bit whether I'd live on or off campus, but I'm glad I made the choice I did. I know I wouldn't have met any of my college friends (most of whom lived in my dorm, some of whom I bumped into at Freshman parties), I know I wouldn't have met Rob (for better or for worse), and I wouldn't have had as much fun in general. I'd probably still be going to church in South Jersey, BFF with my high school friends. I probably wouldn't even be an anime fan (SHOCK!).

[arafel.livejournal.com]

It's more than just classes - it's student life, it's the library, it's meeting friends, it's bad overpriced food, it's sneaking past proctors, it's doing stupid shit you'll never again get to do in your life.

That's it exactly. If you live home, you risk never growing beyond the person you are with your parents. You will have a very hard time experiencing the fun and the freedom of being 18 and on your own with a safety net. Your friends get to go back to the dorm after a bout of drinking and watch Letterman; you get to go home.

Doesn't matter if your college is two minutes or two thousand miles away from home. It's being away from home that starts to make you an adult.

[hardlyfatal.livejournal.com]

I went a whopping 1/2 hour away from home to live at Rutgers-- HAD to get away from the 'rents. Ah, it was bliss. I figured that since I was saving them an assload of out-of-state $$ by not going to Ohio State as I'd wanted, they could spring for a dorm and a meal plan.

Of course, I was lucky to have any of it paid for me at all, but I was 18 and, y'know, feeling like the world owed me bigtime. I've grown out of that now. [cough]

[arafel.livejournal.com]

You went to RU? Ha, wonder if we ever passed each other on campus; you'd have been there the same time I was there (DC '97.) Not like the meal plan at Rutgers was worth paying for. *bad memories of Nielsen*

[hardlyfatal.livejournal.com]

I graduated in '96 from Douglass. Too funny.

I ate at Cooper most of the time, as most of my classes were on Douglass (with the occasional history class in a basement at the river dorms down on College Ave).

Cooper's bouilliabaise was fabulous. Apart from that, meh.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Cooper was a lot nicer than most of the other dining halls, though - the slop was slop no matter where you went, but there was a difference between eating slop at Brower and eating it at Cooper. I wish I'd had more opportunity to eat there, but Neilsen was much closer to Bunting-Cobb, and almost all my classes from junior year on were on Busch.

Where'd you live on DC?

[hardlyfatal.livejournal.com]

The French house, I was a French major.

[fourish.livejournal.com]

Although I've come to the general conclusion that college is mostly bullshit, still think it's absolutely essential you escape from your parents when you're old enough. College or no college.

I have a friend who's 26 (my age) and STILL lives at home. This after college AND grad school. She is not the happiest person I know, to say the least.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

People who never manage to move out - and my uncle is one of them; he didn't leave home until my mother's father died and the house had to be sold - miss out on an essential piece of maturity, I think.

[scathachdhu.livejournal.com]

I left the house, the state, and the time zone. The closest college I even applied to was a good 14 hour drive away. I wasn't even taking the chance of having to stay near home. I'd wanted to get the hell out of Dodge since 7th grade or so.

I definitely think I made the right choice. So many of the memories I cherish most about college happened outside the classroom. And it was a natural progression to me; my sort of probation period before I had to move out and live on my own for real.

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

I tried to get that far away :) My first choice college was in Virginia. When I got in, I did a little jig around the house, and then we received what they planned to give me for financial aid - $2,000. In LOAN form. That sort of dashed any hope I had of going there.

And it is a good probation period for living away from home, because you can always go back for weekends and summers and long breaks, and though it may not seem like it, they do take care of us.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

You weren't kidding about moving out! I wanted to get out of my parents' house, but I still wanted to be a car ride away rather than a plane ticket. Where did you go? I forget.

Very little that's socially interesting happens in the classroom. All the good stuff happens after hours - live home, and you miss all that.

[scathachdhu.livejournal.com]

Northern California. The idea of going to California was so exciting to me at the time. No one in my family had ever gone so far away (except that one cousin in witness protection that we never talk about). People in my family barely left New York, much less went as far away as I did. (The last ones to move out of the city were my mom and my sister, 4 hours' drive north and south of NY respectively.)

So I figured if I was ever going to do something different, college was the time to do it. You'll notice I'm still here, 6 years after graduation.

Don't get me wrong, I miss my family. And I do wish that it was easier to get home. But everyone's expectations were a bit much for me, so I needed to leave. Now I'm the weird one, and no one expects anything less from me. It's liberating.

[scathachdhu.livejournal.com]

Where did you go? I forget.

Sorry...Stanford, where our band runs around naked and is barred from a certain airline that shall remain nameless.

[andmydog.livejournal.com]

I had to move out of my parents' house to go to school, and I'm so happy I did. I had a whole lot of fucking up and growing up to do, which never would have happened had I stayed at home. I learned my tolerence levels for alcohol and drama and sleep deprivation, that ditching class is not always a bad thing and going to class doesn't mean you automatically pass. I discovered the joys of eating disorders, and of paying rent. I had good sex and an abusive SO and a cat who showed her love by drawing blood.

And I didn't realize how good all these things really were until I had to move back home (stupid agoraphobia).

I left home at 18, and came back a different person at 26. Unfortunately, parents can get stuck on a default age. (Because dude. If my dad tells me one more time that I don't understand what he's saying because I don't have as much life experience as he does, I'm going to point out that a: I get it, and he's just wrong, and b: I've had a few more "life experiences" than the ones I've told him about.)

Living at home can be a good thing, I'm sure, but for me, it's retarding. I find myself throwing 15-year-old temper tantrums when my folks piss me off, and I can't shake the feeling that this is my folks' house, and not mine. Thank god I'll be moving out within the next two months. I get to be an adult again! And smoke! And stay up late! And be responsible for my own damn actions!

Can't. fucking. wait.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Sorry that you had to move home again - you probably get the "what is this place, a hotel?" gripe from your parents a lot. Hard to go back in the cage when you've become accustomed to stretching your wings. Though, it's increasingly common to get out of college and be forced to live home again for a while until the job comes through. Congrats on moving out soon! :)

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Thank god I'll be moving out within the next two months.

Yay, I did not know that! Many congrats on the escape!

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Thanks for providing a different perspective! It is true that in a general sense Americans are not as up in one another's business as other cultures are (certainly my Polish landlady seemed to know every other Polish person within a 100-mile radius.) New York is a unique place - you can get a lifetime's worth of different experiences and never leave the Five Boroughs.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

The parents do make a big difference. If I'd had freedom to do the clubbing and concerts in a fascinating city, I wouldn't have been so desperate to get the hell away either!

Movin' out

[xotticus.livejournal.com]

I lived on campus my first two years and got non-campus housing as soon as possible; UMass *requires* students to live in the dorms for two years. I was close enough to my parents that I could pretty much zip home whenever I wanted to. After my freshman year, when I went back home for the summer, I discovered that I couldn't get back into living under someone else's roof. So when I moved back that fall, I moved out for good, although I didn't know at the time I was never coming back. I ended up moving in with my wife-to-be and her household, which ended up being about seven people crammed into a farmhouse apartment. I think that was a pretty valuable life lesson in and of itself.

I think living in the dorms is a great experience, especially if you're like me and never had to do much "real life" stuff like dishes, laundry, cook, etc. You have enough independence to start to spread your wings, but you've still got someone cleaning the bathroom for you and cooking your meals. It's a good first step.

Of course, if you're also like me, you take a couple years to realize that you're there for classes and NOT to play Talisman and Cosmic Encounter until 7 am and sleep until 4 in the afternoon.

Re: Movin' out

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I also lived home the summer after my freshman year, and found it hard to adjust to. I haven't lived with my parents since then.

Of course, if you're also like me, you take a couple years to realize that you're there for classes and NOT to play Talisman and Cosmic Encounter until 7 am and sleep until 4 in the afternoon.

Most of my friends figured that out in the first semester, only it was frat parties rather than computer games. Our rooms weren't wired for any kind of Internet, so we didn't have that distraction.

Re: Movin' out

[xotticus.livejournal.com]

[i]"Most of my friends figured that out in the first semester, only it was frat parties rather than computer games. Our rooms weren't wired for any kind of Internet, so we didn't have that distraction."[/i]

These were board-based RPGs that usually had between six and ten players. Cosmic Encounter in particular gets better the more blitzed you get, although Talisman, which involves a lot of modifiers to stats and die rolls, became still more fun when the Engineering majors lost the ability to add and/or subtract four single digit numbers in their heads.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I couldn't wait to get the hell away from my well-meaning but stupidly over-protective mother. Of the six universities in the country that offered my course, the one that came bottom of my list was the one nearest to home.

Best thing I ever did. I learned to make my own judgement calls instead of just rebelling against her, and to organise my own life. Far more importantly, I learned if I didn't want to be lonely, I had to stop being shy and mousey and talk to people.

I never would have grown up so much living at home, and neither would my mum. It took me moving out to teach her that she wasn't in charge of my life any more, and when I went home during the holidays my relationship with her changed vastly for the better as she no longer tried to control my movements and question everything I did.

No, I wouldn't have run up as much debt living at home. But I wouldn't have had even one quarter the fun, and I wouldn't be the independent me I became.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

HA. My husband's parents did the same thing constantly! "Son, it's good to see you! Dad needs help moving the tree in the backyard."

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I didn't tend to get volunteered for anything but providing the Car Service once Dad had to stop driving for medical reasons. Though one of the things I hate most about going home is that Mum still doesn't have a dishwasher, so I feel like I have to offer now and then. Blergh.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

From what you've told me, your mum does sound on the overweening side - that was a huge relief for me too, to move out and not have Mom on my ass. It's a low-energy state to let your parents run everything, and some people are happier that way, but those of us who are willful and cranky women don't function well in that kind of an environment.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I tended to be contrary about unreasonable demands long before I started asserting myself in other ways. I guess if you have relaxed parents who haven't deliberately forgotten their own teenage years, it might be a different kind of experience!

[arafel.livejournal.com]

We spent less time bickering and I actually started to enjoy spending time with my mom when I was home.

It's so nice when that happens. No more thrown dishes, right?

Her friends were doing all these fun things in the dorms, and she would go home to her parents' house just like she had done in high school.

Exactly. Your friends are doing stuff like toilet-papering the hallway and having trashcan races, and that's what holds friends together ten years down the line. Going to class with someone usually doesn't forge the kind of lasting ties that doing stupid shit together does.

[shadowmoonsedai.livejournal.com]

I lived in a dorm for my first year, but now I have my own place - and were it that I wasn't going to school 6 states away from home, I probably wouldn't have many problems with living at home. My dorm life was too distracting and a pain in the ass. It'll be nice to have my own place to... er, study.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

True, the dorm life does get old after a while, and then it's time to move off-campus. But, at least you had the experience.

[caoin.livejournal.com]

I moved out to go to Uni a few months before turning 18 and I think it was the right thing to do. Actually it was also the only thing to do since the 500km commute could have been taxing. Also I was desperate to get out of the country town I grew up in.

It’s probably already been said prety well above, but it is the other stuff, the stupid stuff that goes on when you live at Uni that makes for lasting friendships. Twenty years on I still have lots of friends who I see regularly who either lived in Howitt Hall or knew someone who did.

[little-licks.livejournal.com]

Not only did I leave home, I went so far away that it was hard to get back.

I went from Bumblefuck, Texas to Boston, and a bigger culture shock could not have been had. I would have been more at home in darkest Africa.

But that was part of the whole point. My first choice of college was Rice, which was only an hour from home, and in retrospect, leaving to parts unknown was good for me. I spent most of my freshman year bemoaning my lack of friends and the rest of college learning how to make friends. By the time I graduated and moved out to another, less exciting, less accessable Texas neighborhood, I had some social skills nailed down.

So yeah, going away did great for me. It also strengthened the relationship I have with my dad - we stopped fighting all the time about my goddamned hair. Dad and I have a pretty buddy-buddy way of dealing with each other now, and I'm pretty good with that.

[ghostfire]

I left home. If I could have, I would have left as soon as I hit middle school, but I had to wait until I could go to a school seven hours' drive away from where I grew up. On one hand, I think it was very good for me because I was away from my family - which would have been good no matter what - and because I got to experience a real city for the first time. Growing up in a place that didn't have so much as a stoplight, just being able to go to a store without asking a parent and riding for half an hour was a treat.

On the other hand, I think it would have been a lot better if I'd had any safety net at all. My parents felt, for some reason, that even though I'd never been able to be independent, I should instantly know how to do everything and be perfectly fine on my own the instant I hit eighteen.

[taransay.livejournal.com]

I am currently living away from home (though I am home for the Summer :) ). I'll admit that originally I wanted to stay at home and go to university. My reason for this was because I wanted to keep the costs down. Regardless, I decided to move out in the end because, well I'd have to move out at some point and what better way to do it then whilst starting university :D

The big bonus of being away from home is that I am a lot more independent, oh and confidence, I've gained a lot of confidence too :)