How To Survive Your First Semester as an Off-Campus Student?

Choosing off-campus living, especially in your first semester of college, offers several benefits. These include saving money, gaining more independence, learning several life skills, experiencing fewer distractions, and staying near campus year-round. Want to learn some tips on how to survive your first semester as an off-campus student? Keep reading.

Research the Student Apartments You Visit

First, opting for off-campus living is a big decision. If you want to make things a little bit easier for you in the long run, you need to pick the right apartment. Whether you’re looking for student rental homes or student apartments, research your options thoroughly. Do not simply rely on pictures. Instead, find out more about the experience of students who have lived there.

Learn about the student housing rental units’ noise levels. Check if there have been problems with the appliances or the building itself. Then, make sure that the property owner or manager values and respects the tenants’ rights and privacy.

Similarly, if you’re a property owner, manager, or staff of student rental homes, you’ll want to choose the right residents to avoid unnecessary and costly evictions or potential property damage. At ExactEstate, we help make tenant screening quick and easy for you. From simple background checks to thorough credit reports and free online rental applications, we help you find and attract better tenants as we partner with TenantAlert.

Choose the Right Roommate

Apart from choosing the right rental unit, you’ll also want to find a roommate that you’re compatible with. Having a roommate allows you to save money because you’ll share the electricity bill, rental fees, and more. However, that doesn’t mean that you can just live with some random students you meet in the hallway. This will only give you more problems in the long run.

Moreover, choose someone who can help you realize your goals as a student. Avoid roommates who will encourage you to focus on other things besides your education. Instead, find someone who can help increase your productivity.

At the same time, as a property manager or owner, you’ll want to enhance your productivity while growing your business. With ExactEstate’s task feature, you can prioritize tasks, set personal reminders, and schedule appointments with potential residents without any hassle.

Pick an Apartment Near Your College

While choosing off-campus living includes several benefits like experiencing more freedom, don’t select a place that’s too far off campus. Otherwise, you’ll have to deal with long, stressful commutes. You’ll end up exhausted even before arriving at your campus. This can affect your school performance and even your motivation to attend your classes.

Meanwhile, living near your college can help you stay more focused and achieve better grades. You won’t feel tired easily because your travel time to and from school is shorter.

Select an Apartment With Entertainment Options

Student housing rental units that have recreational facilities allow you to save money. You don’t have to spend much just to experience different forms of entertainment or relaxation. For example, choose student rental homes with a fitness center, basketball court, game room, or pool. These kinds of amenities can also help improve your university living even if you choose to stay off-campus.

Make a Chore Chart

Staying in dorms within your college or university makes it relatively easier to do some cleaning, given the small space. Meanwhile, staying in student rental homes can be challenging. You’ll have to clean the living room, bathroom, kitchen, and more. To ensure a more efficient process, create a chore chart with your roommates. Establish how you’ll maintain your apartment’s cleanliness and how you’ll divide your tasks.

For property managers or owners, property maintenance is crucial in satisfying the needs of both the staff and the residents. At ExactEstate, we help you ensure a smooth and effective property maintenance workflow with our cutting-edge property management software. From quickly creating work orders to assigning various urgency statuses and handling purchase orders, both your staff and student residents can submit work orders with ease. They’ll also stay updated with the work order statuses wherever they are.

Learn How To Cook

When you stay in dorms, you can access the school’s dining hall easily or take advantage of the meal plan that the college provides. Thus, you won’t have to cook for yourself. Meanwhile, living in student apartments allows you to cook. If you don’t know how to cook, then it’s time to start learning, so you can save money and eat fresh and healthy food.

Start with simple meals. Then, once you get comfortable in the kitchen, you can explore more complex and creative dishes. You can receive your training from your parents, watching tutorial videos online, or enrolling in cooking classes. 

Similar to college students who need to keep learning, property owners have to enhance their knowledge, skills, and competency too. At ExactEstate, you can take advantage of our training courses to ensure a smoother operation and boost your credibility.

Shop in Bulk

In your first semester and the coming years as an off-campus student, you’ll want to save time, money, and other resources. This includes shopping in bulk, so you won’t have to keep going back to the market. Instead, you can maximize your time finishing your assignments, studying for your exams, and handling other important tasks. Moreover, compared to single items, bulk ones are often cheaper.

Make a grocery list and follow your shopping schedule. You might also want to meal prep, so you’re settled for the week. Apart from saving time and money, you can avoid food waste.

Manage Your Finances Wisely

One of the challenges of off-campus living is managing your finances well. Otherwise, you might end up paying your bills late or not have the money to pay them at all. Avoid unnecessary stress by creating and sticking to your budget, and distinguishing your needs and wants. Also, don’t forget your bills’ due dates. Working with a financial expert can help you budget your money wisely.

Meanwhile, as a property owner or manager, you’ll want your student residents to send secure online payments. From automating rent collection to customizing processing payments, ExactEstate makes fund collection smooth and hassle-free for you.

Final Thoughts

Your first semester as an off-campus student may be challenging, but it includes multiple benefits, like enjoying more freedom, becoming more responsible, and saving money. However, you’ll need to research student apartments thoroughly, select one that’s not too far, pick a roommate you’re compatible with, and handle your finances well.

For owners or managers of student rental homes, you’ll want to help students enjoy their off-campus living while also ensuring business success. With reliable property management software like ExactEstate, you'll get everything you need — from streamlined applications, higher productivity, various customization options, to document management. Schedule a free demo with us today to see how we can help achieve your business goals.