College dorms or apartments?: how to choose the best option

One of the most expensive aspects of attending college abroad is paying for your living expenses.

Moving out of your parents’ house is the most important step as a young person and it's always a hard decision. However, studying abroad in an international program will be a great experience for your entire life, which will also boost your employability.

The skills and experience you gain from studying abroad can give you life-long personal benefits as well as a leg up in the professional world. Nevertheless, there is something that you have to arrange before packing up your suitcases: where will you live abroad?

Travelling to study in a new country is a big change and living in a comfortable, secure accommodation is an important part of settling down to your studies and making friends.

If you are still looking for the best option for you, such as living in a college dorm or in an apartment, this article will be of interest.

How to obtain an international academic degree in Peru? You can check out this link.

College dorm

You’re excited to experience university life fully, to make new friends, leave home and find a new place to live. In case you’re thinking of living in a college dorm, we have compiled pros and cons to help you to decide.

One of the best benefits of living in a college dorm is that they’re really close to your classes and generally are in a central location. You don’t have to take any public transport daily to get to classes or the library. You can just walk and in a few minutes get there.

Living in the dorms, especially your first year, will help you socialize. You are surrounded by tons of students who are looking to make new friends, so the process is much easier.

While there are many advantages to living in a college dorm there are also some cons.

You generally don’t have the privacy, what’s more you share the bathroom with the other residents because bathrooms are typically communal which means you might find yourself fighting for shower time. Also it’s easy to hear noise from other dorms around you.

In some cases, living in the college dorms may be a much cheaper option than renting an apartment with your friends or by yourself. But it depends on where you live, and how close you live to the campus.

Apartment

If you are considering living off-campus, renting an apartment may seem like the best option for you but honestly it will depend where you are, who you’re with, and what you make of it.  Here we listed some of pros and cons to help you to decide.

One of the best benefits of living in an apartment is definitely the sense of privacy, freedom and autonomy compared to a college dorm. But if you can’t pay all the bills of an apartment, you can find roommates that you like to share expenses. That’s not bad at all because you can choose friends to live with you.

One of the disadvantages of renting an apartment is to live far from campus. In that case, you will need to take the bus or the train, for this you will need to determine transportation costs (whether for car, public bus, etc.) and budget more travel time.

Finally starting the search for accommodation from abroad could be a very difficult task. Renting an apartment comes with increased demands and responsibilities than live in a college dorm.

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As a recommendation before deciding which option may be best for you, consider all the costs associated with both living arrangements. It’s important to analyze these and determine what you need as student before deciding what to do.

In order to do so we've pinned down a pro and con list that will help you map out the benefits and disadvantages of each option.

Now that you know the difference between a dorm and an apartment, schedule an interview with our program director to begin your international journey.