5 things you learn when you live off campus

Move off campus to pick up these essential life skills

It’s your second semester at uni and you’ve probably decided that you’ve got this university-living thing sussed. As a first year, you’re probably living in university halls, surrounded by a bunch of other eager and excited freshers, all of you enjoying the sweet, sweet taste of freedom and the chance to go it alone and start life away from home. But, the best bit of university life is coming up – the chance to live off campus.

It may seem daunting, but living off campus means you can begin to experience independence like never before. It’s the bit of university when you start to feel like a proper grown-up and you discover that you’ve got the confidence to make it in the big, wide world.

Here’s the five things you only find out when you live off campus.

1) Time management is easy

On campus living means you live as close as humanly possible to your lectures. But somehow you’re still having to creep in to the lecture theatre five minutes late. Living off campus means a commute. And that’s when you discover those time management skills that you never knew you had. Yes, you may have to walk, or queue for a bus (maybe the occasional Uber), but you quickly learn how to plan out your day more.

If you are going to go into uni for that 1-hour lecture, you may as well stick around and get the essentials done, too. Do that reading, catch up with tutors, or even grab a coffee with that friend who last year only lived up a flight of stairs, but now lives on the other side of town.

2) Cooking is fun

With a choice of places to eat out, the high cost of food in the expensive on-campus convenience stores and a scrum in the kitchen at dinner time, cooking isn’t always a high priority, when you live on campus. Once you’re out in the world, suddenly you find yourself near a Lidl or Aldi. Food shopping suddenly becomes cheaper and you also find yourself eating ACTUAL meals.

Seven University of Birmingham students turned the sudden discovery of their own culinary skills into an Instagram account, to prove that it’s easy for dinner to be transformed from kettle or microwave meals into ‘legendary’ feasts.

And cooking proper meals means you’re saving money, too.

3) How to turn parties into soirees

On-campus parties are noisy, cause a lot of mess and usually disband when the rugby club turns up, uninvited. Moving off campus means your parties become more intimate invite-only affairs, so you can experiment with mixology and the height of sophistication: nibbles. It’s a rule of nature that someone in the house will be the resident DJ (the house mate with half decent speakers and a student Apple Music subscription). They’ll always be ready to get the party started and ‘throw out the sickest beats’. But with a smaller number of guests your house parties will be lot less hassle and cause a lot less mess. (Obviously, don’t forget that you’ll have neighbours, so keep the noise at a polite level.)

4) Become a financial whiz

Bills. No one likes receiving bills, but they’re not as complicated as you might think. For one, Purple Frog can help you sort out a bills package. You won’t necessarily have to break out your maths GCSE, but dealing with utilities and working out your budget for the year will also give you some valuable skills and experience, which you will use literally for the rest of your life.

5) Cement friendships

This will be the first time you are living with friends. The horror of having no say in your flat mates from first year is a thing of the past, it is just you and people you have chosen to be with. There may be debates about who hasn’t bought loo roll yet, or whether purchasing good quality washing up liquid is really worth it, but you will make memories that define your time at university.

These people will always be there for you through thick and thin and will be your friends for life.