Living on campus can be a great experience. Whether it’s meeting new friends, being close to Convo and the Eagle’s Nest or living right next door to your classes, you can make plenty of memories living in the dorms. But, it’s becoming harder every year to get into the senior apartments on campus and living in dorms without air conditioning can be a hassle.

Personally, being 21 years old and living in a dorm is somewhat annoying. The university rule from Residence Life handbook is that you have to be 22 years old by October 1 of your senior to live off-campus. Keep in mind, there isn’t a lot of students who turn 22 before October 1 of their senior year.

I find this frustrating because I will be 22 years old on November 13. What difference does a month make? I think juniors and seniors should be allowed to live off-campus. Not only is the freshman class increasing every year, but some of the older upperclassmen dorms are the ones that need the most work done like Jacobs Hall.

Like my friends who go to different universities, I want to have a house or live in a apartment and try to take on the responsibility of paying bills and utilities. Living off campus would prepare me for when I graduate, because I would know what to expect when I get an apartment of my own. I think the school should look into changing the off-campus rules or atleast allowing seniors who are 21 by October of their senior year to live off-campus.

It’s also more difficult to get into a senior apartment on campus. Residence Life has changed the point system to where it’s the points taken for the lottery is the average of the whole apartment group when it used to be the person with the highest amount of points got  into the lottery.

In 2017, going into my junior year, I was in a lottery group with three incoming seniors. Usually, there is enough points to get an apartment with three seniors and one junior. My apartment group did it when they were juniors and none of us had been written up or deducted points for our lottery score. We were put into the lottery but all of the apartments were taken before our lottery time.

Also, I’m a 21 year old senior and I don’t get the same luxury of drinking beer and wine like the others do in the senior apartments. I understand that the dorms have residents who aren’t 21 and Ashland is a “dry campus” but it’s frustrating. It’s my last year of college, I’m 21 and I worked just as hard in school as those who are in the senior apartments. I deserve those and other luxuries as a senior in college.  

I’m an adult, I want to be able to live on my own and not in a dorm. Don’t get me wrong, I loved living in a dorm my first couple of years, but being a senior, I didn’t even get into the dorm I wanted this year and I want to grow and live where I can be an adult and others feel the same way.

It makes more sense and a lot of universities like The Ohio State University, allows students of junior and senior status to live off-campus.

To be honest, a senior really doesn’t want to live their last full year of college in a dorm with no air conditioning.  Just a thought.