Although many of my friends began to move out of the dorms after sophomore or junior year, this is my fourth year living in on-campus housing. I’ll admit, I was definitely tempted to move off campus as well. It sounded really fun to experience Rochester in a new way, and to have more living space to romp around in. I also really love the cozy architecture of the houses in the Park Ave area, which is where my friends and many other Naz students choose to live during their junior and senior years. Eventually, I decided to keep living on campus, but I ‘upgraded’ to one of the on-campus apartments.
Within the last three years, I’ve lived in a double in Kearney, a double suite in Clock Tower, and a single in George. Now, as a senior, I am currently living with three other girls in the Portka apartments. While we still enjoy the convenience of having the dining hall, academic buildings, the library, and the new Golisano Training Center within a five-minute-walk radius, we also have access to a spacious living room, a fully equipped kitchen, two bathrooms, and the privacy of our own bedrooms. Plus, as luck would have it, we also get stunning views of the sun setting over the Golden Flyer Stadium from our living room window!
Although I’ve had good experiences in all of the dorms I’ve lived in at Naz, Portka has easily become my favorite. However, I think it has a lot to do with how I’ve grown in these past four years, rather than the actual quality of the rooms. Each of the dorms I’ve lived in (or am currently living in) have reflected my goals for the school year, and perfectly suited the needs I had for a home away from home.
My freshman year, I wanted to be in the middle of all the action. I wanted to meet as many people as possible and make new friends, really motivating myself to get out of my comfort zone. Kearney was perfect for that! When I moved in I was a lot less intimidated to meet new people, because I was surrounded by other freshmen and I knew that my neighbors would be in the same boat as me, trying to get our footing in a new place together. Kearney also provided a really good introduction to living away from home. Living in a double gave me the opportunity to navigate living with a roommate for the first time, and the close proximity of amenities, like free washers and dryers and the dining hall, helped me figure out how to make time to clean my room and do my laundry, and self-manage my health and wellness. All in all, Kearney was a good place for me to start my college journey.
Clock Tower and George were a lot quieter than Kearney, which I really appreciated during my sophomore and junior years, since I wanted to be able to be able to rest and relax between intervals of my increasingly busy schedule. Between classes, volleyball, my new job as a student photographer, and Community Youth Development service learning, it was nice to have my own space on campus where I knew I’d be able to power nap in peace. In Clock Tower, I lived in a suite with one of my best friends which was super fun. Our double was connected to another double by a private bathroom, and we decorated our room with colorful tapestries, cheerful pictures, and cozy little fairy lights. It was one of the comfiest room set-ups I’ve had at Naz!
Last year, I lived in George in a single that was connected to my friend’s single by a half bathroom. Though we would’ve loved to live in Clock Tower together again, we decided George fit our situation a lot better for our junior year. I knew I’d be leaving after a semester to study abroad in the spring, and she was worried about having a random roommate move in halfway through the year, but we still wanted to live together. The connected singles ended up being a great middle ground because we were technically still roommates, but we both had our own space for the semester! At first I thought it was a little lonely in comparison to living with my friend in a close-proximity double, but I ended up really enjoying having the extra privacy and a whole room to myself.
This brings me back to this year in the Portka Apartments. As I mentioned before, having access to all the on-campus and in-apartment amenities has been really great so far! Even though I’m still living on campus, I feel as though I have the freedom and independence of the lifestyle that comes with living off-campus (minus the responsibilities of paying rent every month). The apartments are also great because in addition to our own private bedrooms, my roommates and I get to bake cookies in our kitchen and munch on those cookies during scary movie nights in our living room. We’ve even begun planning how to decorate communal space with a Christmas tree when the holidays start to roll around! Furthermore, I also feel like I’ve taken a more active role in keeping up with my “adulting” responsibilities, like cleaning the apartment, taking out the trash, washing dishes, etc. With a smaller meal plan, I’m also very motivated to make frequent trips to Wegmans and experiment with new recipes that I find on Pinterest. It feels like living in Portka has already begun to prepare me for living on my own in the future after graduation.
Even though I chose to live on campus for all four years of my time at Naz, I don’t feel like I’m trapped at school or like I’ve been stuck in one place too long. Likewise, Naz doesn’t feel less like a home to me just because I’ve jumped from building to building each year. The different dorms have offered me unique opportunities to develop healthy living habits, and I was able to feel very much at home in each dorm. Though living off campus has a lot of benefits and a lot of my friends have had great experiences living in the Park Ave area, I’m very grateful for the support Naz has given me through on-campus housing!