Jenny Lu | Housing selection, for the fourth time

I’ve never had the desire to live outside the walls of a Penn college house.

As a junior, I’ve watched friends and acquaintances get sucked from the Quad — where I lived my freshman year — to off-campus Greek houses, the Radian and HamCo. Watching them settle into their new homes made me wonder if I would be happier in a off-campus house — Big kitchens! Porches! My own big room! — than in the apartment in Harnwell I was in.

Spending all four years of your college experience in “dorms” may seem unglamorous to some. Who wants to deal with an RA past freshman year? Quiet hours don’t exist in an off-campus house. Others enjoy that feeling of calling a house “theirs” — it bestows upon them a sense of independence when the lease is signed and bills are to be paid every month. It’s almost like it’s not college anymore, but the “real” world.

For me though, I don’t place importance on such things. My priorities include being able to run out of my room 10 minutes before class and still being able to get there on time — something that definitely wouldn’t be possible if I was living on, say, 42nd and Pine. It’s certainly plausible if I had a bike, but I don’t (and if I did, I’d probably be terrified of riding it through the streets of Philadelphia anyways).

For me, I’m fine with my high-rise apartment: the twin extra-long bed, the narrow room that constitutes my single (it’s “cozy,” I say to myself) and the cramped kitchen space. I appreciate the constancy that comes with living on campus — you have a rough idea each year of what you’re going to get and what to expect your apartment to look like. This probably wouldn’t be true if you moved houses every year, skipping from Spruce to Locust to Sansom and back.

I take advantage of the multitude of study spots that are available in my college house. I appreciate having a cafe right below me that’s open until 2 a.m. As annoying as I think swiping my PennCard to go through the swinging gates is, I am thankful for the AlliedBarton security guards stationed there.

I won’t lie — my parents also played a large part in my decision to stay on campus. It’s true thatliving off campus can be cheaper than the costs of various rooms on campus. But my parents were willing to pay if I stayed on campus, believing I was safer in the cocoon of Penn security and not having to worry about me wandering the streets of West Philly in the middle of the night to get home after a long study session.

I also got my fill of living off campus over the summer, when I lived at 39th and Baltimore. Seeing all the furniture my subletter had ordered — and now had to move into her new house — made me realize that I had taken the standard furnishings of a typical dorm room for granted. Mice ran rampant in the house. Traffic streaked by the intersection right outside my window, horns honking at all hours of the night. And I was often able to clearly hear the conversations of people walking by. When you’re on the ninth floor of a high rise, such disturbances are rare and never become a problem.

Ultimately, I made the decision to stay on campus all four years because it was convenient and easy for me and my parents, and it suited my schedule well. The cons of moving off campus outweighed the pros for me. However, I acknowledge it’s different for everyone — make your choice wisely, based on your schedule, interests and personal preference, as redundant as that sounds. The allure of living off campus may often be more idealistic than realistic.

Jenny Lu is a College junior from Chapel Hill, N.C. She is currently a copy editor at The Daily Pennsylvanian. She can be reached at jennyl@sas.upenn.edu.

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