We made it Lakers… This is the first publication of the 2024 fall semester year! If you are reading this, you are now three weeks into school and it is absolutely the best time to be a college student.
It is warm outside, classes are just beginning so there is not that midterm dread yet, you are finally around your friends for the first time in months. You can chalk it up to a ton of things but I have to admit the energy is amazing for the first month of the school year.
This is my first semester living off-campus and I have the great opportunity to live in a house with a handful of my close friends. I have to admit it has been a small culture shock for me to go from a dorm to a house with three other people, two cats and a dog. I do not consider myself to be a cat person, I prefer my two 80 pound labradoodles at home. However, I believe everyone should experience getting a house with your friends even if it is just for a short period of time.
You will hear it from everyone, from “what is going to happen if there is a fight?”, or “what are you going to do for food?” or the classic “what happens if one roommate leaves before the lease ends?” While these are fine questions to ask, that is the point of moving off-campus in the first place… to learn some valuable life lessons.
To live in a house, you will have to iron up on those core values like flexibility. Everyone has different schedules, no matter if you try to match class times. Beyond that, everyone has different habits as well, so you have to be accommodating for every thing that you can. For instance, going to the gym is absolutely one of the most important parts of my days, but I like working out very early in the morning. Since no one is awake in my house at 6-7 a.m., I have to be extremely quiet in the early mornings.
The toughest part of renting a house with your friends is splitting responsibility. As college students, we have never “parented” one another and now I have to go tell one of my buddies to wash dishes? It will never feel good telling your friend to do any chores. However, you have to “clean up” those teamwork skills to create a comfortable environment for everyone.
By no means is the place I am living in a stereotypical college house. We have cleaned and decorated it enough to make it a college home. Everybody has their own living space on top of an awesome main room that we all hang out in. There are two TVs and I hit peak human civilization when I watched YouTube and played NCAA25 at the same time on move-in day.
Looping back to the beginning of this column, the warm weather has reignited my hobby of walking to as many places as I can before winter takes over. I walk to get food, I walk to the parks around town just to breathe fresh air, but best of all I have been walking back and forth from my house to campus. If you ever see a guy walking up and down George Washington Blvd with the brightest orange headphones ever, it is likely me.
Overall from the Oswegonian, I am just excited to finally put our heads down and work. We have some awesome people on staff and some really dedicated people that want to write for us this year. We are going to be putting out the best work that is possible and I hope you enjoy what we produce!
