[nabs-l] Campus Housing and social concerns.

[Kaiti Shelton]

Hi all,

Please let me know if you have any suggestions on this.

I go to a fairly small university, where 90% of the students live on
campus.  Figuring out housing for the next year can be very complex,
as the university pushes students to have groups put together.  The
groups are especially important for upperclassmen to have, since a lot
of their housing is apartments and houses around campus.

Two friends and I formed a group of 3 in freshman year, and at the
time we thought we would stay together.  We got an apartment this year
and things were going really well.  Just over break one of the girls
decided that she was going to transfer to a school closer to home for
personal reasons, and the other has said for a while that since she
lives fairly close she is planning on commuting for junior year.
Therefore, the plan of my friend who transfered and I getting an
apartment together has fallen through.  I have also applied to live in
my fraternity house, but unfortunately I was not accepted.

One of the things I've noticed about my school is that the students
can be pretty cliquey.  My two friends and I sort of had our own
little group because we didn't fall in to any of the larger ones early
on in freshman year.  I now see two problems forming for junior year;
I am friendly with a lot of people, but wasn't particularly close to
anyone other than my two friends on campus.  I'm pretty extroverted
though, and love being around other people.  It was so easy to
socialize as a freshman because even though I was a little shy in the
beginning other people would go out of their way to be friendly and
welcoming.  It seems kind of awkward now that I'm halfway through
sophomore year.  A lot of those I am not close to do not really know
me that well, but I'm worried that since a year and a half has gone by
with us just being acquaintances that it might be difficult for them
to really get to know me.  The second issue is of course that I will
not have someone to be in a group with me for housing.

I have looked at the housing web site.  Juniors and seniors cannot
live in the dorms because they're reserved for freshman and sophomore
students.  I would use a dorm as a fall back plan, but that isn't
going to work.  A lot of the apartment suites are either quads or
tripples, so I would need at least 2 more people to get into one of
those.  There is almost nothing available for two people, and there
appear to be no options available for just one in case I would need to
just look for myself.

I've come up with a few obvious ways to try to fix this; A lot of the
problem that I'm sure other music majors can attest to is that I spend
a lot of time around the same very small group of people.  There are
about 100 students in the department, and these are the people I am
always around.  They have already grouped up, and that was also how I
met my two friends that I lived with last semester.  I will be taking
some more gen ed courses this semester which could help with getting
out of the familiar social circles, but since I'm going to be going to
class I'm not sure how much time there will really be for socializing.
 I have looked up some clubs which might be good to join, and a lot of
them sound like things I will really enjoy.  However, I usually take a
large number of credits, and have a lot on my plate for next semester
again.  I really do feel like joining a new club would be a good way
for me to branch out and meet new people, but I am not sure if I will
have the extra time to devote to it.  The added component is that a
lot of the clubs that caught my interest were social justice groups
like Best Buddies and Big Brothers Big Sisters, so if I joined one of
these groups and had to back out I would also be letting down someone
else.

I know that if all else fails the disability office can help secure
housing, but I'm hoping to get a group together and not have to go
through them.  Of course, if it comes down to just needing a place to
sleep, I will do it.

Has anyone ever been in a similar situation where either you had
housing concerns or felt like you really needed to branch out?  What
were some things which worked for you?

-- 
Kaiti