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This could be us but you chose Hewitt
Many students have finally cozied into their new homes in the dorms, beginning to realize that they love or hate the decision they spent months making last spring. Big Plimpin resident Courtney Couillard defends the choice of living in dorms farther from the main campus.
Living away from campus in either off-campus housing or some of the more sought after dorms (EC and Cathedral Gardens) tends to be seen as a luxury for only seniors or rich people. I mean, who would be willing to live farther than a two minute walk to the hollows of Butler or the energetic cashiers at Morton Williams? For these reasons and a handful of others, most students choose to live in housing that is either on the main campuses of Columbia and Barnard instead of having to hike down and up the dreaded hill on Amsterdam and Broadway to either 110th or 120th.
However, moving in to the dorms farther away from campus, i.e. Plimpton, 110th, Harmony, and arguably, McBain/Nussbaum, make for a much better living experience compared to the sad days of stumbling through campus. I can only speak from about a month of experience, but living farther away from the main campuses of Columbia in Plimpton is the balls. New adventures and bigger suites await outside of campus with foreign objects, such as a stove, fridge, and toilet brush. Also, you finally get to feel like a “grown up adult” living in New York without having to pay out the wazoo for a comfortable closet on the UWS.
Being able to flex your culinary muscles makes living farther from campus a superb choice. Most students in these farther dorms understandably opt out of the meal plans because not even a hearty bowl of Ferris pasta can make the 10 minute walk from Plimpton sound appeasing after 5pm. Instead of eating the same dried out food every day, your kitchen allows for you to become a MasterChef, somewhere closer to the kid version. Even if you’re not a chef, you’re bound to have friends that are itching to bake something every now and then. You can convince them to leave everything they bake in your suite by saying you conveniently ran out of tupperware for the week and get free brownies.
Now that you’re actually preparing nutritious food of substance in your kitchen, you’re bound to kick that Freshman 15 by February. If that isn’t helping, the butt load of exercise you are now forced to participate in just to get to your bed should do the trick. Turn on that pedometer and see how many miles you rack up in one night going to Butler to study and realizing you forgot something in your dorm on five separate occasions. However, once winter makes its way to the city, it’s advisable to carry a sled with you to all your classes to aid in your hike. You can probably make it back to your dorm in a tight 3 minutes sliding down Amsterdam. New York is your gym because you can’t afford a membership, so take advantage of it living farther away from campus.
I get the complaints about “walking is so hard” and “it’s so much easier to just continue to be an adult form of a child for four years in college.” Honestly, natural selection will surely take over at some point if you’re unable to walk an avenue and a couple blocks a few times a day, or make your own dinner. And even if we do have a terrible winter full of snow and you never want to leave your building to go to campus, you will at least make a few new friends at the vending machine, commiserating over how you only fell down Amsterdam two times this week.
One of those “mixed” gender suites via Shutterstock
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9 Comments
@cc '16 i live in ruggles. you don’t have to live off campus to do all that stuff…
@Anonymous Living off campus is generally not fun. It is very isolating, all activities and all of your friends are on campus. Plus it is significantly more expensive and a hassle than people let on. You have to pay for all your utilities, cable, Internet, etc than can be hundreds of more dollars per month you have to completely furnish the place. You have to buy everything from lightbulbs to shades. You have to find a place to do laundry. There is no ons to call when things break down. It is very expensive, time consuming and a major headache. Living in a university owned and operated building a few blocks away is not the same thing.
@Anonymous Wow this article is terrible
@Nope and nope I lived on 110th and bway, and that was a nightmare. I had to pack for classes in the morning and not make it back till evening because i never had a spare 25 minutes in my schedule or it wasn’t worth the hike to grab a sweater or book. IT WAS A NIGHTMARE.
And let’s not get started on the trek to butler in the snow. ajsdlfkajdfl;akjdfs;ajdls;fkj.
@hmmm Wow. Six whole city blocks? You poor thing.
@110th and broadway? Your apartment was 4 blocks from the edge of the main campus. It takes longer to walk from Pupin to Butler than it does to walk from your apartment to Butler. It’s a longer distance (120th to 114th instead of 110th to 114th), plus there are a lot more stairs.
@Anonymous How is this “off” campus at all? With the exception of CG and Carlton Arms, all dorms are within a 10-minute walk of Low Steps.
@Try living in Brooklyn No seriously. Try it.
Living in dorms is still expensive, and truly moving off campus is the only way that some of us can continue to afford this school. And when I say off campus I mean OFF. Like WAY off.
@Don't be jealous “Honestly, natural selection will surely take over at some point if you’re unable to walk an avenue and a couple blocks a few times a day, or make your own dinner.”
Get off dat ass