Cabrini’s housing lottery Commuters versus Residents College is about the experience

MELISSA STEVEN ASST. FEATURES EDITOR MS727@CABRINI EDU

Going to college is one of the best experiences someone could ever have. Getting to live on your own with friends creates memories that last forever. Most of the people that you meet in college stay in your life after you graduate, unlike friends from high school. Living on campus is how you get to meet these new life-long friends, but not everyone gets the opportunity to live at Cabrini.

I am sophomore, but I have never lived on campus. Living at home does have its advantages, but the college experience is just not the same. I want to move onto campus in my junior year, but what scares me is that I am not guaranteed housing. I only live 15 minutes from school, but I think everyone should get to experience what it is like living on campus. It would be fun to live down the hall from your friends and become independent from your parents, so why can't everyone get a chance to that?

I know there are people who come from very far away to go to school and they deserve housing also. What I am saying is that people who have never lived on campus before should be allowed to live here and not have to be put on a waiting list. Once you're on the waiting list, you have to postpone making alternate living arrangements, like finding an apartment to live in if you get denied. So you get stuck just waiting to find out where you are suppose to live next year

I want to have the advantage of waking up 20 minutes before my class and not have to worry about being late. I do not want to worry about what I should do to waste time in between classes or wasting money on gas going back and forth from school. I want to have the benefit of being able to go back to my room when I have nothing else to do instead of sitting in Jazzman's Café or the library. I also want to have the advantage of living near my friends, to be in walking distance from one another.

People who have never lived on campus before should not have to be put on a waiting list. People who have lived there since freshmen year should not necessarily get first choice on where they get to live on campus. They have had the experience, now it's time to let people who want the experience be able to live here. Cabrini's way of housing is unfair to begin with because we are a college that cannot even guarantee housing all four years, but I believe that not letting students who are paying so much money to go here is even more unfair. Another part of housing that is unfair is that if I want to live with my friends next year on campus I cannot because simply I am on the waiting list. So my friends who need one more roommate for the apartment complex cannot ask for me to be their roommate, so they will be stuck living with someone they do not know. Wouldn't it make sense to let me live me them, which would create less problems in the long run, instead of sticking an extra person they do not know into their apartment.

It is a shame that a lot of seniors will not get housing, but they have had three years to experience living on campus. All I am asking is for is one, hopefully two years to be able to live here. There are other commuters who would agree also because gas is not cheap anymore, and although fifteen minutes does not seem like a lot of time, that is at least 30 minutes in the car each day. If I have a big break in between classes I go home, so that at least an hour a day. Gas is about $2 a gallon, which adds up at the end of the week. Being able to live on campus and not use a car a lot helps out.

These are some of things that residents take of advantage of that commuters want. I hear a lot of people com plain about living on campus, but if you really do not like it then move of so that you can give your spot to people who want to actually live here.

NINA SCIMENES SPORTS EDITOR NMS722@CABRINI EDU

Hate to break it to you but I have found out that the housing lottery, the waiting list, and residence life does not really care what you want.

Living on campus has been a great experience for me these past three years. As a junior, I have made Cabrini my home away from home. I live two hours away in northern New Jersey and when I chose to attend Cabrini College I was under the impression from admissions that I would be guaranteed housing for four years. I was told that people who live farther away would be granted more priority in the selection of housing on campus. This of course is not what has happened.