Everyone likes being alone some of the time, whether it’s to study, rest, or meditate, if you’re into that. But, when it comes to student housing, the question to ponder is whether you want to live alone all the time. Most Golden Knights answer no; they recognize the value of socializing outside of class — camaraderie, stress relief, feeling supported — and inherently want roommates. However, if you’re conflicted about whether or not to share your abode, here are additional benefits of having roommates that may change your mind.
You Have More (And Better) Choices For Housing Near UCF
If you’ve been living at the UCF dormitories or your family’s house, and haven’t yet experienced modern student housing in Orlando, you’re due for a pleasant surprise. Simply put: this type of housing is trendy, luxurious, and made 100 percent for student living.
A few highlights of The Station Alafaya, for instance, are furnished units, resort-style amenities, and a location near campus. On the other hand, townhomes like ours (with three to six bedrooms) are designed for roommates — and we’re not unique in that respect.
Therefore, by making the decision to live alone, you’ll have narrowed the choices of off campus housing available to you. If a one-bedroom unit is what you’re after, you’ll find fewer of them near UCF, and they may also cost more than shared student apartments yet offer fewer features and amenities.
On the other hand, if you’re willing to live with roommates, you’ll have a wider array of student housing options at your disposal.
What About Finding Roommates?
Maybe your hesitation about shared housing isn’t that you prefer to live alone but that you don’t have any roommates picked out. Truth be told, that issue is more common than you might think, especially among those who are new to Orlando or, for whatever reasons, haven’t connected with people on campus.
If you don’t have roommates lined up, that’s OK. You still can apply solo to The Station Alafaya, then we’ll match you with other peers through a free, roommate-matching service: it’s a great way to meet like-minded people and allows you to take advantage of off campus student housing.
Even In Shared Housing, Privacy Is Still Readily Available
You might be thinking that living alone is the only way to have peace and quiet as a college student. But that’s not the case. In modern student housing near UCF, the units may be shared, but the bedrooms are individual and private — same for the bathrooms.
The kitchens, meanwhile, have ample counter and cabinet space to meet everyone’s cooking and food-storage needs. Plus, there are several common areas, like a living area and an outdoor patio or porch, which roommates can take turns using as private spaces.
What About Indoor Noise Levels?
Sure, having privacy is appealing, but what about the noise levels in a residence that has three, four, five, or even six college kids? Admittedly, that’s a valid concern. But it’s also one the designers of student housing took into consideration when they built The Station Alafaya.
From the walls to the doors, the floors to the ceilings, student apartments are built of high-end materials that dampen interior and exterior noises. If you choose to go the other route and rent a one-room unit someplace, your apartment may be quite, but you may hear all of your neighbors through the walls, floor and ceiling. In our townhomes, you know what to expect: an environment that’s conducive to studying and sleeping (two activities you want to excel at).
Student housing is also quieter, on average, than other types of rental properties. This might seem counterintuitive at first, considering the stereotype of rowdy college kids (ever watch Animal House?). But the truth is that students are relatively quiet people as the majority engage in far more studying and sleeping than partying, while few have children or pets, two of the primary noise-makers in other apartment complexes.
Distribution Of Labor: A Lesson In Sharing Chores & Saving Money
If you take an economics or business class at UCF, you might learn about labor economics: the study of how labor productivity boosts economic performance. There’s a similar pattern of results for tasks like cooking, cleaning, and grocery shopping when students share an apartment.
When you live alone, you’re responsible for just about everything. The landlord and maintenance staff will offer assistance on some matters, but most of the tasks are your charge. And believe it or not, it takes a lot of work is to keep a home clean, pay the bills, and ensure you have a fridge full of food for dinner every night. And you’ll want to plan out your food carefully to avoid waste (e.g., stale cereal or spoiled fruit that you didn’t eat in time).
But when you share housing with roommates, you can distribute the household chores in a manner that benefits everyone beyond what they’d experience living alone; this could be called the art of sharing.
Consider cleaning. Buying cleaning supplies in bulk cuts costs, and having each roommate specializing in a specific activity (vacuuming, bathrooms, kitchen) saves time. These are the types of advantages that residents of a 3-, 4-, 5-, or 6-bedroom townhomes near UCF have that students in single-room units don’t.
There are more financial savings to be had by splitting the cost of groceries (another category of items to buy in bulk) and carpooling to campus and other locations around Orlando. Not to mention, student housing provides lots of community amenities, from fitness centers to swimming pools, which serve as free entertainment and are often most effectively enjoyed in groups.
What About Disagreements?
College students, and this includes roommates, are not exempt from freeriding — when individuals benefit disproportionately from the work of a group. With that said, most of the arguments about a roommate who is not pulling his or her own weight — on cleaning duties or when chipping in on grocery runs — can be nipped in the bud by laying out some ground rules.
Make it clear at the beginning what the expectations are for things like buying food and doing chores. If you want to collect one fund for community snacks while giving each person an individual storage area for their personal groceries, that’s a workable arrangement; but make it clear up front. The last thing you want is an argument because one person ate another’s food.
As for chores, the easiest solution is a chore wheel that assigns clearly defined duties. This way, each person knows his or her responsibilities. And if someone is slacking on a regular basis, have all the roommates come together to discuss the matter openly and amicably to prevent petty, one-on-one feuds that can disrupt the household.
Disagreements are less common among roommates than you might think. Between living with friends and using roommate-matching services, most residents have a high chance of living with compatible people. For every inter-roommate feud that takes place, most residents can list dozens of positive, sometimes life-changing experiences. The purpose of college is learning, but some of that education, especially the social elements, happen outside the classroom.
These are just a few of the general benefits of living with roommates. You will very likely discover several more that are unique to your situation: maybe you’ve been looking for friends with whom to play volleyball, go swimming, or study. To see what life is like at The Station Alafaya, tour our off campus housing near UCF, during which you’ll see furnished apartments and resort-style amenities, all at a location just minutes from UCF campus.