Western Kentucky University - Talisman Yearbook (Bowling Green, KY)

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— Steve Lowry 19 Dorms vs apartments

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Dorms vs. apartments Whether on campus or off, a student’s home away from home may become either a haven or a headache side from the classes, homework and Ar friends, living away from home for the first time can be one of the most ex- citing and sometimes difficult, times that face college students. For students living in dorms, it meant sharing a 15-by-20 home away from home with a total stranger. For many students living in apart- ments, it meant paying the rent, telephone and electric bills. But no matter what mode of living students chose at college, there was always plenty of fun, frustration and surprises. “In the dorms you have to get used to things really quick — like public showers, bathrooms and people being around all the time,” Jeff Shirley, a Bardstown junior, said. A transfer student from Elizabethtown Com- munity College, Shirley moved into Pearce-Ford Tower at the beginning of the spring semester after spending three semesters in apartments. “It seems like the rooms are a lot smaller than they are in apartments,” he said. “‘But | spend a lot more time in the (university center) grill than | spend in my room.” Shirley said his decision to try dorm life was one of simple economics. “It was expensive,” he said. A hundred dollars a month for rent kind of threw me.”’ Along with the extra money, Shirley said dorm life gave him more opportunity to study and socialize. ‘| get a lot more news and see my friends more now that I’m on campus,” he said. “And | spend a lot more time in the library — it’s more accessible.” But Shirley said that living in a dorm also has its drawbacks. “Sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night to find someone playing around out in the hall, and in apartments you usually have a good refrigerator and stove. All |’ve got now is a little refrigerator, and the stove on our floor doesn’t work, so! can’t cook,” he said. Getting to class is easier from a dorm, Shirley said, even though he learned quickly not to wait for elevators. “| don’t use them very much, because around class time, they’re always packed full by the time they get to my floor,” he said. ‘‘It only hurts going up.” Shawn Cosman, a senior from Houston, Texas, moved back to the dorms after trying apartment life for a semester. The campus has a lot of hidden benefits that you don't really notice until they’re gone — like clean sheets every week,” he said. The Park Street apartment Cosman occupied in the fall semester came with plumbing and electrical problems, he said. “In a dorm, all that’s taken care of by the university. It’s hard to deal with maintenance problems when you're going to school,” he said. “| wanted to try it out (an apartment), and to get away from some of the problems of dorm life. But most of those problems, like noises, ex- penses and privacy go with you unless you can afford an apartment big enough so everyone can have their own space,”’ he said. And as far as school goes, Cosman said, get- ting there is half the fun when you live off cam- pus. ‘‘The way gas prices are going, | was spen- ding almost all my money just getting back and forth.” — Steve Lowry “Your friends both on and off campus are usually within walking distance from the university, so in a dorm, I can just park my car and leave it for a week at a time.” Cosman said although the problem of noisy neighbors is worse in dorms than in apart- ments, it’s also easier to solve. “Here you can just call the desk and somebody’!l do something about it. In an apart- ment, all you can do is call the landlord or police, if you want to wait a few days,” he said. Cosman’s room on the sixth floor of Barnes- Campbell featured posters of Linda Ronstadt and Ayatollah Khomeini (the latter as a target's bull's eye), as well as two neatly stacked pyramids of cans. One of the pyramids was empty beer cans; the other, unopened cans of Campbell's soup. “You can do just about anything you want in dorms as long as you don’t paint the walls orange or try to keep livestock up here,”’ he said. ‘‘It can be a problem working things out on open house night, depending on who you live with, but generally things go okay. “It's a big mistake to never live on campus — that’s how you meet a lot of people. | think it’s really good for freshmen to live in the dorms to find out what school’s all about,’’ Cosman said, ‘“‘but I also think it’s good to spend a semester in an apartment, just to see what life’s really like when you have to do for yourself.” One student who has lived off campus for continued on page 20 IN THE KITCHEN of Barnes-Campbell, Curtis Richie, a Louisville sophomore, scrambles eggs for his breakfast. Students will often cook in the dorm kitchen to save money. AFTER A RUGBY GAME, Barbara Barry serves pecan pie to members of the rugby team. By living off campus, she was able to get around the university's open house policy. POSTERS, PLANTS and a few fishnets remind Maree Kuhne, a graduate student from Horsham, Australia, of home. Kuhne was knitting in her compact Poland Hall room. — Mike Collins 18 Dorms vs apartments

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20 Dorms vs. apartments cont. several years is Marie Bunce, a Louisville senior. Bunce moved into South Hall when she transferred from Jefferson Community College in the fall of 1979, and moved back out again “as soon as possible,”’ she said. After spending a month in the dorm, Bunce sai d, “‘l was really going crazy; trying to study for tests when your roommate wants to party defeats the purpose of being here. And | could have gone to a lot better parties if I’d stayed in Louisville.”’ But getting out of the dorm wasn’t the end of Bunce’s housing problems. ‘‘Finding a place that was inhabitable was awfully hard — harder than it seemed like it should be,”’ she said. The apartment on 13th Street that Bunce first occupied after leaving campus included a lot of freeloading roommates. “‘There were roaches in that place as big as my thumb,” she said. ‘‘Everything in the cupboards | had to keep tied up in plastic bags. “The landlord kept insisting that he'd sprayed,’ Bunce said, ‘‘but he must have used something that roaches like to eat.” WHILE HIS ROOMMATE Curtis Richie, a Louisville sophomore, sleeps, Turner Cloar, a Munfordville junior, studies his accounting. In a dorm, trying to sleep while a roommate studies has always been a problem. — Steve Lowry And, according to Bunce, not all apartments are noise-free. ‘‘The walls were so thin, | could hear the guy next door roll over in bed at night. Anything louder sounded like it was going on in my apartment,” she said. After months of searching, Bunce found a clean, quiet apartment on Center Street. Relatively quiet, that is. “The only noise | get here is the people walk- ing around upstairs. Compared to the other places I've lived in Bowling Green, it’s like heaven,” she said. Bunce said apartments close to campus are more expensive for obvious’ reasons. “Landlords in a town this size know that they've got students right where they want them, but being close enough to walk to class is worth it,’ she said. “Trying to find a parking space in the morning if you're driving from off campus is harder than finding a good apart- ment in the middle of the semester.” Finding a comfortable place off campus helped Bunce’s grades, she said. ‘‘It took so much pressure off, it was like dropping two classes.” “Not everybody looks at it that way, but finding a decent place to live really helped me make it through. | don’t know if | would have, otherwise,’’ Bunce said. At Barbara Barry’s Parkside Court duplex apartments, a line of cars overflowing the driveway meant everybody was home. A Louisville senior, Barry shared the two- bedroom duplex with three other women. ‘'It gets a little hectic at times,’’ she said. ‘But we're all friends, so we get along pretty well.” Two bedrooms between four women was no problem, Barry said, but the apartment’s one bathroom presented some interesting schedul- ing conflicts. “We try to talk each other into taking showers at night so there isn’t a traffic jam in the morning,’ Cathy Francis, one of Barry’s roommates, said. “Usually it doesn’t work,” junior said. “But some of us are night people and some of us are morning people,” Barry said. ‘‘So we can work around each other without too much trouble.” “I’m a night person,’’ said Pam Shelton, a Russellville graduate student who was moving in to replace one of Barry’s other roommates. “During the day, I’m so busy that I have to do those things whenever | can.” But in spite of the crowded conditions, Barry's other roommate, Louisville junior Annie Boone, said apartment living was more comfor- table than living in a dorm. “‘You don’t feel like someone’s looking over your shoulder all the time,’’ she said. ‘We all compromise, so most of the time it’s pretty much fun,” Boone said. Fred Wheeler the Louisville er gitlilas oe CEECEEEEL