Did you live off-campus with friends in upper year?

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I didn't. I lived in a town house that is considered on-campus with three other random people (I did not know them before moving in).

My school required students to live on campus; you could get permission to live off-campus but it took a lot of paperwork. There were a few reasons you could petition to live off-campus, one was if you had an "established household" in one of the nearby towns. My boyfriend at the time and I had an apartment in the town the school was in, and the college granted me permission to live off-campus. I was close enough to school to walk; in bad weather my boyfriend would sometimes drive me (if he wasn't at work).

I liked living off-campus; for one thing, not eating the school food was nice. I had a lot more space (bigger closests, too), and I was living with someone I not only knew well, but loved. My school had strict rules about overnight visitors and noise that meant big trouble if broken! In my own place, I could have friends over whenever I wanted and for as long as I wanted, and as long as we didn't break any noise ordinances we could do whatever we wanted until whatever time. I never had to worry all the showers would be in use at once. I even hosted my first-ever dinner party that year, for New Year's Eve.

However, it had its drawbacks as well. I felt very disconnected from the school and events there. I lost touch with the friends I had on-campus, partially because of that disconnect. There was no rolling out of bed five minutes before class. The college continued to send things to my on-campus mailbox, meaning that to get any college-related mail I had to go to the opposite end of campus from where my classes and house were. I forgot a lot of the time and so missed out on things I'd previously enjoyed, like chalking, light-up night, celebration of sisterhood, convocation, and so on. Plus, when it came time to graduate, I was NOWHERE on the list. I had a very similar name to another girl (same last name, and my first name was the same as her middle), so they put me in her group of graduates by accident -- luckily, the dean knew me well, so when the whole group had gone but me, and the president of the school was mouthing, "Who are you?" at me, he ran up and whispered my name in her ear. I was the only student who got a hug!

Overall, I'm glad I lived off-campus for a while, but it wasn't perfect, either.

I never lived on campus, I lived in my own apartment with my fiance all through college.