Fall Break fast approaching means one thing, the chance to spend a little time away from your dorm room.
Complaining about the residence halls is another one of those experiences that draws younger students together, but I want to caution you. Your living situation may be sweeter than you realize.
Sure, depending on which building you call home, your room may be a little old and a little small, but if you can look past the minor inconveniences, you may just find a reason to stay.
Residence halls house a lot of people. This means you have a lot of potential friends who live just down the hall. Odds are you will not get along with everyone, but those you do click with are just a few steps away. Instead of driving from one apartment complex to another to gather a group of friends, you simply have to step outside your room, take a few steps, and knock on some doors.
I have spent the majority of my college career on campus. After spending two years in a residence hall (Memorial), I moved to on-campus apartments (the Arbors) before finally moving off campus this year. It wasn’t until this year began that I realized the concept of ‘neighbor’ is different depending on where you live. When I lived in the residence halls, neighbors were people you saw almost every day (and if you were lucky, they could also be people you studied with, people you ate meals with, and people you considered friends). In the on-campus apartments, my neighbors and I weren’t as close as in the residence hall. We each had a little more space and less of a need to interact, but we still knew each other and greeted each other when we met outside our doors. Off-campus, the people I live next to are less neighbors and more humans who I run into occasionally. Of course, this is just one person’s experience, but I think the on-campus atmosphere helps create a sense of community that doesn’t exist in the same way off campus.
The on-campus community has something else going for it—Community Leaders. Their job is to look out for you and foster a sense of community. They plan activities and spend a lot of their time thinking of ways to help you feel at home and a part of the group. Once you enter into the world beyond Baylor, building community will be entirely up to you. You will be the one planning movie nights or finding food to bring your group together, but for right now, these people who care about you are willing to do that part for you. So enjoy the time you have with these people who work so hard for your sake.
I know. Living in a dorm room is not always fun. Everyone has aspects of the experience they wish they could change. But before you know it, you will be living somewhere else. Take a moment today to appreciate the beauty of your unique living situation.
Kara Blomquist is a senior BIC student majoring in linguistics.