Living Situation

When you decide to attend any school, you basically have three choices for your living situation: dorm, family member, or apartment. Since I do not have any family in the Boston area, I only have two choices. If you were to ask me a month ago whether or not I was considering living in a dorm, I would have said "no," but time has a way of changing things.

In order to understand my initial reaction, you have to understand that I have not lived in university housing for three years. I lived in off-campus housing my senior year of college, and I currently live in an apartment in Chicago. Over the years, I have gotten used to doing my laundry in my own apartment, cooking my own food, and cleaning my own living space. And, I like it a lot.

At the same time, I have also gotten used to paying bills and damn, there are a lot of them. Seeing my bank account bulk up only to trim down every month is never fun, but I guess that is the price you pay for having all of life's necessities in 700 sq. feet.

My cost sensitivity has only gotten worse since I started working. Currently, more than half of my monthly income goes to my bills, which include rent, utilities, and college loans. Although I can go out on the occasional nice dinner, it is difficult to save up for big things like weekend trips. If I were to do it over again, I would have probably gotten a cheaper place. And that is why I am not so sure I want to live on my own in Boston.

It is not cheap to live in Chicago, but Boston is 20% more expensive in virtually every category, whether it be housing, food, or entertainment. This is a tough nut to swallow considering Tufts Dental School is one of the more expensive dental schools in the country. Even worse, TUSDM is in the heart of downtown Boston, which means everything is more expensive. By comparison, I live about 30 blocks North of Chicago's downtown area. I can tell you that you definitely get more for the money where I am currently at.

This is where the dorm option comes into play. For about $200 less a month than its apartment counterpart, I can live in TUSDM's dorm, which contains both dental and medical school students. The dorm is also right on campus, meaning my daily "commute" to class is a few minutes at the most. I will not have the same amount of living space, but the dorms are in far better shape then what I had in college, and I will not have monthly utilities bills. The convenience factor and no additional costs make dorm living an attractive option.

There is no guarantee that I will have a spot in the dorm, but you can bet I will be sending a certified check reserving my spot as soon as the dorm application becomes available. I will still look for apartments in mid-April just in case I do not get a spot. Who knows, may be it will turn out to be an even better option than I can imagine.