Living on- vs off-campus

monydad
Fri, 13 Jul 2018 03:24:12 +0000

Freshmen in the freshman dorms are all at the same stage socially, so have a common incentive to get to know each other. But once they make those connections they are no longer as receptive to new people. IMO that’s why the upperclassmen dorm my D2 lived in when she transferred in was not that friendly. She made friends, but initially it was from among a group of fellow transfer students. Then afterwards she lived in a Collegetown apartment, and everyone in the house became friends, pretty much.

What you don’t want to be is living alone at a large campus where you don’t know anyone. Because it’s hard to meet people when there is no natural way to interact with the same people repeatedly.

If you go in with a bunch of fellow transfer students that may not be so bad.
Maybe look into whether an opening develops at on of the co-ops. These are intimate living units, much smaller than a dorm. The close quarters lead to actually interacting repeatedly with the same people, which leads to actually knowing them and establishing relationships.
Being in the freshman dorm may not be that bad either. Yes they are a year younger, but that’s not so much, and like you they are all new to the campus. I assume you don’t have problems interacting with freshmen.

It might even be an advantage. When I attended there were some kids that stayed as sophomores in my otherwise freshman dorm, and they did pretty well socially, from what I saw. They got "dibs’ on meeting a bunch of freshman women. (sorry if that’s a bit crass but there it is…)