Commuting vs Living On Campus

Wisdom2share
Thu, 23 Aug 2018 13:38:40 +0000

If you staying on campus 1st year you will have established friends. But it is not given, like everything else, new friendships need work… if you are not available to do social activities with your friends you may eventually get left out. You will need to put effort to maintain those friendships. Because of the structure of the classes in college you don’t always see the same people in your classes and sometimes people branch out and make new friends. It’s especially true for roommates who are many time not even in your major. Know your core group of friends and try hard to stay connected with them when you move back home. Many times it works out in your favor, if you friends are from out of town. They will always enjoy a home cooked meal once in while or place to crash when they need a break from their dorm. You can make it work, but it depends on how flexible and willing you are to maintain your friendships.

As a parent the only down side to this I see it is that, living away from home teaches you life skills that are essential as an adult. Such as learning to manage your time to for other things along with your academic work, planning your meals and laundry etc. As long as you can stay independent and not depend on your parents for anything else other than room and board you will be okay, but not if mom is still doing your laundry and making your meals.

When my DD was a day scholar at a local private high school, she found it hard to maintain close friendships when she came home right after school. She took advantage of the option the school had that allowed day scholars to stay till 9 PM in the common room of the dorms and spent her time there doing her HW and other activities with friends and came home only to sleep.