College Strategies

Lesson 8: Graduating from 1st Year and Planning Your Future

Moving out/Finding a New Place to Live

If you were living on residence in first year then depending on your college you need to find a new place to live next year. Some colleges will accept senior year students on residence, but a smaller number so the competition is fierce. In most cases though you have to move out at the very least.

Moving out of your Room
You will have to adhere to very strict rules when moving out. Depending on the college you go to, you have to leave within so many hours after you last exam. Typically that is on average 24 hours. It’s not much time to pack everything you have accumulated and organize your leave. Not to mention cleaning the place spotless. In other words you need to plan. You will have to pack little by little the things you no longer need during your study period and in the last few weeks of classes. Pack all your winter clothing as soon as it is getting warmer. Keep a suitcase under your bed where you can routinely stuff something in. that way it seems like it all disappears effortlessly and eventually you have little packing left to do.

Expect you have to leave your room spotless and depending on the setup also clean a common area of the residence you were living in. make sure you have cleaning supplies ready and you know your checkout time. Try to be on time because there can be fines and penalties if you are not or if you leave a ‘dirty’ room behind. That can either be clean in your own terms or not, important is that it will be clean in the eyes of the residence employee who checks it. Ask them in advance what the requirements are and what they will be looking for. Also notify them in advance of any damages that are not by your fault, like a toilet that doesn’t flush, because if you leave it until move out they might actually charge you for it!

Finding a new place to live
If you can reapply for residence and you want to opt for that, make sure you mention everything you have been involved in the past year. If there is no section on the application for extracurricular activities type out a neat page and staple it to the application. Most residences take that into consideration and you can get an extra point over other students.

If you cannot or do not want to live on residence again, then you will have to search for a room! Now there are two options available :
Either you search for a room independently, which can be in a family home or in a house looking for a housemate. Or you find a house with a set of friends and share the rent. The first is less complicated because you don’t need to keep everyone else in mind, but the second can be more fun. If you have four or five friends you would like to live with arrange that each one of you will look for a place, and report your findings to each other. Be clean on each others requirements, and only look for places what have those features. If all but one for example has a car, then you still want to be close to public transit. Even if the person can hitch a ride with someone else, sometimes they just want to go somewhere besides school on their own! You can browse the internet for housing, or visit a real estate agent. If you do both you are guaranteed to get a maximum result.

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