Living at home/away for college
Jul. 21st, 2005 03:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonwiseRecently, 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!
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!
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-22 02:48 am (UTC)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.