Student housing is a different world on its own, and you’ll need to understand this world to live harmoniously with the inhabitants. Besides, different people living together in a shared space usually cause clashes due to differences in personalities, lifestyles, backgrounds, and social statuses.
How well you try to handle your living situation will determine the outcome you get, whether a friendly relationship with your co-occupants or a bad blood-filled one. Also, your student housing lifestyle will contribute to your total experience in the school.
So, how do you ensure you have a wonderful experience while living in student housing? Here are 6 wonderful tips that’ll immensely help you.
1.Carefully Choose Your Housemates
Some student housings give students the opportunity of choosing who they’ll live with. This type of student housing doesn’t believe in putting unfamiliar people together to boost the inculcation of healthy interaction and relationship-building skills. This is both beneficial and non-beneficial.
It’s beneficial to influence the students to boost their interpersonal relationship-building skills with familiar and unfamiliar people. This would prove useful for career progression as well as life itself.
On the other hand, being placed together in a shared room or accommodation with an unfamiliar individual could be problematic if the individual is toxic and difficult to handle. This could affect the mental health of individuals that are sharing the accommodation with such persons.
Overall, it’s better to live with someone you’re familiar with. So, if possible, opt to live with friends whose lifestyle you can cope with. If you can’t live with your friends in your chosen student housing, you should take time to get to know your housemates. Compatibility is important when you’re choosing a co-occupant. You and your co-occupants cannot have 100% compatibility, but you must have similar living habits and, even possibly, similar interests. You can then establish conversations on your common interests. Your roommates or housemates may not necessarily become your best friends. However, as you’ll be sharing accommodation, you might as well make the best of it.
Also, take into account your personality type as well as personal preferences when choosing living partners. It’ll be your safest bet to choose a partner with a similar personality and personal preferences. This will help you live happily and peacefully with your co-occupants.
Communication is an important part of living with other people. While some are lucky enough to move in with someone with who they’re already friends, the chances are high that you’ll be living with someone randomly assigned. If this is the case, it’s best to communicate with the people you’ll be living with. In addition, communication is important when you have any issues. For example, it’s best to communicate with your housemates if you’re bothered by something before it turns into a larger conflict.
2.Bring Your Essentials to Your New Accommodation
To avoid strife when living in student housing or shared accommodation, you should bring all your essentials to your new accommodation. Try to find out from your accommodation supervisor what you’re allowed to bring to the student housing. For example, find out if you can take items like electrical appliances along because some student housings don’t allow this. Thankfully, some student housings, like Deltaphi Apts, allows this.
Other than electrical appliances, it would help if you ascertained whether the accommodation allows pets or not. Again, this is because some student accommodations don’t allow pets due to intolerance or disturbance. If your accommodation allows pets and you plan on bringing in one, find out if your co-occupant(s) can live with a pet as well. If they can’t, you need to either change rooms or change roommates to avoid discord.
Apart from the above, try to bring other personal items, like bed sheets, iron, cooking utensils, to your accommodation. Also, don’t forget to bring along pillows for your bed or a travel pillow you can carry with you to common living spaces and other personal effects. This is to avoid borrowing appliances from roommates and co-occupants. At times, discord starts through frequent borrowing of appliances.
Carrying your essentials with you to your accommodation will help you avoid tussles with your co-occupants.
3.Democratically Organize Your Kitchen and Personal Space
Sharing kitchens and personal space are peculiar to student housing and shared accommodations. Not surprisingly, this arrangement/setup could cause contention or clashes between the inhabitants of the accommodation. How, then, do you manage the situation to avoid strife? The first major step is to organize your kitchen and personal space democratically.
Considering the number of inhabitants who’ll be sharing your accommodation with you, you’ll need to make boundaries. Share the space appropriately and let each person be aware of their own allocated space.
For instance, having all occupants jam their kitchen items in the kitchen, typically small, could prove challenging and tedious. Hence, try to share the fridge, cupboard, and shelves appropriately.
It’s also important for each person to have their own kitchen utensils and cutleries. This will help avoid arguments and tussles. Additionally, there should be no discrepancy about who owns which furniture, wardrobe, shelves, area of the room, and more. This will help you avoid potential disagreements with your house partners, allowing you to live happily and peacefully in your student housing.
While you’re free to organize your own things in your designated spaces, you may also want to share responsibilities with your roommates. It could mean assigning chores such as taking out the trash. While you don’t have to impose a chore chart, it’s best to communicate with others how they plan to share some chores with you.
4.Understand Your House Contract (What are covered/What are not)
Different student housings have different contract policies, and understanding them will help you enjoy your time in student housing. Some shared accommodations allow monthly payments, while some prefer six months to one-year down payments.
Some housing contracts state you are to cover your monthly utility bills by yourself, while other contracts cover the utility bills for you since you have made your accommodation payment.
You can’t know this until you read the policies attached to housing contracts before signing them. This is why you should read your housing contract thoroughly before agreeing to the terms. That way, you can avoid contentions with your accommodation supervisor.
It’s also important for you to take into consideration the equipment that you might frequently need. If they’re essential to you, such as washing machine, cooker, fridge, water heater, humidifier, etc., ascertain if your accommodation has them. If your accommodation has these and more, the house might be pricier than others, but it’ll be good for you.
5.Manage Your Bills Appropriately
If your shared apartment requires you to make a monthly payment of bills, there’s a high chance that you’ll need to learn how to share the bill payment with your housemates. . If not carefully handled, this could cause issues between you and your housemates. This is especially true if you’re dealing with difficult living partners.
If you want to avoid bill payment tussle, you should draft out a payment schedule. Start by limiting your utility usage. As much as possible, keep your lights turned off during the day, limit WIFI usage, and moderate your water and heater usage. Do everything to cut back on your utility bills. Also, advise your co-occupants to do the same.
Since your utility bill is reduced, it’ll be easier to share. Also, the amount allocated to everyone for payment will reduce the payment load on everyone. The major tussle comes when some co-occupants use utilities lavishly yet refuse to pay their bills appropriately, which happens frequently, but you must remember not to let it get to you.
Calmly discuss the bill payment friction with your co-inhabitants and reach an agreement. Next, make a living budget and schedule on how to pay the bills. If contention concerning bill payments is out of the way, you’ll find living in a shared accommodation much more pleasant.
6.Inculcate Student Housing Living Habits
No doubt, living in student housing is different from living alone or living with your family. Since you’ll be living with different people, you’ll need to compromise frequently.
Recognizing that people have different backgrounds and are raised differently will help you manage your expectations over time. Also, know that your roommate’s habits may differ from yours, so it’s best to meet them in the middle if you encounter problems.
If you’re used to living a large life, not caring whether you disturb people or not, you’ll need to cut back on that. But, even if you’re courteous enough to cut back on your lifestyle, don’t expect others to do the same.
Some individuals will not be bothered about how their lifestyle disturbs others. For instance, someone might continue to play loud music right beside you even though you’re trying to study. So instead of starting a fight or arguing with that person, talk it out or move to a different spot.
When it comes to good student housing living habits, you need to know that different housings have various regulations. Before moving in, you must agree to those terms. For instance, if your housing has a time limit for entry, you need to adhere to it. It might be that no one can gain entry into the housing after midnight for safety. You would have to stick to that even if you’re used to returning home at past midnight.
Other habits you need to avoid include playing loud music at midnight, especially when others are sleeping, and refusing to clean the toilet and bathroom after use. Doing these and more could cause a clash between you and the other house occupants. You have to compromise and make others feel comfortable. If you’re uncomfortable with the housing rules, then it’s better to find other housing options.
Moreover, other occupants might make you feel uncomfortable from time to time. If this is the case, you would need to make them aware of how they’re making you feel uncomfortable and communicate patiently and peacefully. In the face of possible fights or arguments, you should always try to be the peacemaker or report to the housing authority.
Conclusion
To successfully live in student housing, you need to understand your housemates. Observe them and use that to relate with them. Only after observing and understanding them will you be able to relate with them happily and peacefully.
Overall, you should know that you and only you get to determine your happiness. This is why you should never allow situations you experience in your shared apartment to disturb you; be more understanding and overlook minor issues. Try to communicate your feelings with your roommates and housemates peacefully. That way, you’ll be able to live peacefully and happily with others in your student housing.
University Magazine is part of the 
