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Point of View: Campus housing begins to feel like home, after relocating to off-campus housing

Sept. 22, 2009

By Megan Keyser

When I came to Baylor my freshman year I was excited about everything, most notably about moving into a dorm that would foster the majority of my freshman circle of friends.

Despite numerous horror stories I had heard about freshman year roommates and community bathrooms, I was thrilled at the possibilities my freshman residential experience would bring.

In Collins I made some of my closest friends and felt an incredible sense of community.

My friends and I congregated in the halls at night to talk, ate nearly every meal together, made late night trips to Walmart and had Friday night Guitar Hero marathons that lasted until 2 a.m.

I was independent and had my own activities, but if I ever got lonely I knew those wonderful friends were just a few doors away.

Near the beginning of the on-campus housing sign-up, my tiny room and community bathroom had me itching for a bigger space. So a few friends and I started making plans to move off-campus. We looked at apartment after apartment for months, but none of them was quite what we were looking for, and by the end of that school year I made up my mind to stay on-campus for the remainder of my undergraduate education

Well, things didn't work out quite as I had hoped. By the time my sign-up date arrived, the type of room I wanted was no longer available, so I once again changed my plans, and I now live off-campus with a friend.

I love my apartment. I have more than enough closet space for all of my stuff, I have my own bedroom and bathroom and I get to cook my own food.

But as much as I love my space, I often feel nostalgic for my on-campus days. Living on 5th and Bagby, I am almost on-campus, but despite my close proximity to campus, I feel a separation and a distance. I feel outside of the Baylor bubble, and while this may be a welcome escape to some, for me, it is a feeling of loss.

Each new semester I begin seems to pass a little faster than the one before and brings with it a renewed realization that this experience will soon be over. I have the rest of my life after college to deal with monthly rent checks, utility bills and weekly trips to the grocery store. Why rush into it?

Dorms certainly have their flaws, and in my two years of living on-campus, I made my share of complaints to family and friends.

But I know that once I leave here with my diploma and venture into the real world, I will wish I still had the opportunity to live in a building with my best friends, get food and do laundry with the swipe of a card and wake up and get to class or work in five minutes or less.

Having an apartment is great, but I miss looking out my window and seeing Pat Neff, running into friends and classmates in the hall or laundry room, and believe it or not, I even miss swiping my card to get into my building.

A certain feeling comes with living on-campus that can't be found anywhere else, even three blocks away. It is a feeling of community that just isn't the same once you change your address. It is the knowledge that this place isn't just classrooms, professors, libraries and coffee; it's home.

Megan Keyser is a junior, journalism major, from The Woodlands. She is a staff writer for the Baylor Lariat.

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