Living in School or Home or Away from home near school, which is best?

At some point in your education journey, you're bound to be riddled with this choice. In case you're wondering about what to look out for while making this choice here are a few pointers.

Living at Home

The most obvious benefit to living at home and travelling to school daily is greatly reduced expenses. You will not have to pay rent or electricity and water bills. Increased stipend, the major expense for one living at home is fare. One doesn't have to worry about other expenses such as rent, electricity bills etc. Some of this money that would have been used for such expenses can be converted to your personal use. Most people hardly ever view deciding what to eat as a major decision until you move out. At home you will never have to make that choice.

 

However, some disadvantages include, wasting time commuting to and from home. Based on how far you are from school you might end up wasting up to about 3hrs a day just on moving to school and back home. Reduced freedom. Most people living at home have curfews that is, you have to arrive home before a certain time. You cannot have friends visiting as frequent as someone leaving away from home. House chores. If you come from a home without a house help, you will probably be the one doing some chores. At home the amount of chores tends to be a lot compared to leaving alone.

 

Living in school Pros

The best thing about it is saving up on time and money spent travelling since hostels are just walking distance from your classes. You would also get good rates on accommodation. University hostels tend to be very cheap hence it is really affordable especially if you are working on a tight budget. There are fewer distractions to studying for example house chores that come with living at home. Having access to school facilities such as the library, internet etc. from morning up to late into the night.

 

Cons

The downside to it is the fact that your freedom is limited. For example, you can't host parties or relatives and friends on a whim, in most campuses. Your matron's bound to come weed them out. Sharing rooms, in some schools you get to share rooms with other students. You can share up to 4 students in a room, this greatly reduces one's privacy. Some hostels don't allow students to cook therefore this would be big inconvenience and results to buying relatively expensive food outside the school. Also this would be a roadblock to sharpen your cooking skills. Also,Sharing of facilities, this is common in most hostels. You share rooms hence lack of privacy. Other facilities like bathrooms, toilets if not well cleaned would bring about sanitation problems.

 

Living away from home Pros

Unlimited freedom. You get to live by your rules hence one is able to organize his times, what they want to eat, no curfew and other restrictions that come with living at home or hostels in school. Cooking. There are hostels on campus that don't allow you to cook. Outside campus you are free to cook. Also, One gets to live alone hence having privacy and not sharing facilities. A personal favourites of mine is the fact that I don't share a bathroom with anyone.

 

Cons

High rental prices, at times you might find getting house on your budget challenging hence left with choice to reduce your other expense or not getting a house at all. Moreover, if you're a spendthrift, you may run out of money for food before your next round of pocket money arrives as well. So this living arrangement is not advisable for people with poor spending habits.

 

So in retrospect, with number one being the best, I would rank living these arrangements as follows:

1. Living away from home near school

2. Living at home

3. Living within the school premises

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