2008 Woodie Awards
Stock up when you move off campus
Issue date: 5/1/08
While moving off campus can be a hassle, it's almost always worth it. You'll wind up with a much more pleasant living situation, often for a fraction of what it costs to live in the dorms. The rules are also more lax, so you'll be able to burn candles freely and have pets. But unfortunately, there are several things you will need to buy in order to achieve true off-campus bliss.
There are a lot of things you might never think to buy if you have been living in the dorms for a few years; living in a dorm could never completely prepare you for living in an apartment.
For starters, you will probably have to buy a shower curtain, and ideally it will be aesthetically pleasing, or at least mentally stimulating. Sometimes former residents leave behind awful vinyl shower curtains with little tacky sailboats on them. Take my advice and throw them out. There are a million pretty shower curtains to be had from Target or Pottery Barn - Anthropologie makes some gorgeous ones, but they start at $50 and go up from there. Urban Outfitters makes shower curtains with blown-up black and white pictures of London, Paris and New York, as well as ones covered in SAT words, French vocabulary or the periodic table-perfect for the average Hopkins student. What could be better than improving your vocabulary while rinsing off a grueling, sweaty all-nighter in the HAC lab?
In the kitchen, you will have to worry about stocking some more serious kitchen supplies than what you had in the dorms. Maybe you have four burners to work with now instead of two, which means that you can cook a real meal for you and your friends like a normal adult. You'll want to get some more pots and pans and perhaps a big pot to cook pasta in. If you've never had an oven before, now would be the time to get some cookie sheets and baking pans. You might need more serving utensils, a can opener, a cheese grater and, most importantly, the ever-elusive corkscrew. You can finally sit back and enjoy one of the best parts of living off-campus: imbibing alcohol at home without the fear of getting caught. Living in an RA suite for a year, for instance, makes you much more aware of the importance of this fact. It's better not to keep alcohol in dresser drawers and always have to drink it warm.
There are a lot of things you might never think to buy if you have been living in the dorms for a few years; living in a dorm could never completely prepare you for living in an apartment.
For starters, you will probably have to buy a shower curtain, and ideally it will be aesthetically pleasing, or at least mentally stimulating. Sometimes former residents leave behind awful vinyl shower curtains with little tacky sailboats on them. Take my advice and throw them out. There are a million pretty shower curtains to be had from Target or Pottery Barn - Anthropologie makes some gorgeous ones, but they start at $50 and go up from there. Urban Outfitters makes shower curtains with blown-up black and white pictures of London, Paris and New York, as well as ones covered in SAT words, French vocabulary or the periodic table-perfect for the average Hopkins student. What could be better than improving your vocabulary while rinsing off a grueling, sweaty all-nighter in the HAC lab?
In the kitchen, you will have to worry about stocking some more serious kitchen supplies than what you had in the dorms. Maybe you have four burners to work with now instead of two, which means that you can cook a real meal for you and your friends like a normal adult. You'll want to get some more pots and pans and perhaps a big pot to cook pasta in. If you've never had an oven before, now would be the time to get some cookie sheets and baking pans. You might need more serving utensils, a can opener, a cheese grater and, most importantly, the ever-elusive corkscrew. You can finally sit back and enjoy one of the best parts of living off-campus: imbibing alcohol at home without the fear of getting caught. Living in an RA suite for a year, for instance, makes you much more aware of the importance of this fact. It's better not to keep alcohol in dresser drawers and always have to drink it warm.
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