Finding common ground between on- and off-campus lifestyles

Students share their thoughts, comments and crazy stories about the differences between living on and off the Hill. They may seem worlds apart from each other, but the two halves of UCLA both share the college experience in slightly different settings.

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TRANSCRIPT:

SORRELLS: So I was standing on the sidewalk, about to go into De Neve Plaza at that crosswalk. And I had my headphones on, and I guess I didn’t hear, but the cop was shouting out “Hey! Hey! Hey!” but I hadn’t heard him. And then he grabs me by the shoulder and asks me, “Oh, why did you do that? You just jaywalked!”

FRANCIS: Anthony Sorrells-Yager, a first-year musical theater student living on campus, recalls his harrowing tale of being given a ticket for jaywalking, which came as a shock to the San Francisco native, especially in his first weeks at college.

SORRELLS: […] And then I said, “You know, people do it in San Francisco, you know, they don’t wait on the sidewalk, they wait in the street,” and he said, “Oh I’ve been there – I’ve been to San Francisco, and they do not do that there.” And I was like, “Well, I live there.” And then he wrote me a ticket. […]

FRANCIS: According to the UCLA housing portal, nearly 11,000 undergraduates live on campus, more commonly referred to as “the Hill” by students. And for many of these students, it’s their first time living away from home alongside hundreds of students just as nervous as them. Though living on the Hill is not without its drawbacks, students like Jacob Garson, a first-year undeclared student, feel that the experience is a valuable one.

GARSON: It’s a very small community, which is nice, ’cause you see your neighbors and you get to meet a lot of people. And it’s great because you get to interact with them on a whole different level than you might or might not be used to. And it’s really just a very interesting living experience because you get to see all these different lifestyles – you have to in a way interact with these different lifestyles.

FRANCIS: Everyone on the Hill has stories about their roommates or their friends’ roommates and about how quickly the strangers you move in with become familiar, often in ways you wouldn’t expect.

“My roommate thinks his houseplant is an actual pet.”
“My roommate fainted, butt naked. I had to not only wake her up – naked – but I also had to take her to the hospital and stay there until like eight in the morning.”
“My roommate screams in Spanish in her sleep. … My suitemate has full-on concerts in the shower. And one time, she sang and stopped singing and said, ‘Oh my god, I gave myself chills.”

FRANCIS: The quirky characters and funny stories are not limited to the campus side of Gayley Avenue, though the differences between living on and off campus are profound. To some, like Shany Albalak, a third-year costume design student and Tanya Flynn, a second-year theater student, it may even feel like another world, besides just another way of living.

ALBALAK: What’s unique about living off campus? Basically, you have to fend for yourself at that point. … But it’s great because you actually get to go home to a home instead of to a dorm.

FLYNN: The biggest difference between living on campus and off campus is that I have my own kitchen. Sometimes it’s a good thing, sometimes it’s not a good thing. I like apartments because they’re a nice step up from the dorms ’cause they’re a little bit bigger and there’s a little bit more responsibility, but they’re not huge and like overwhelming.

FRANCIS: Although the off-campus lifestyle can be a better pace for students, it’s not without its own challenges. Life is still full of surprises off the Hill, sometimes pleasant or not. Albalak shares.

ALBALAK: Our water pipe burst above our apartment, and our bathtub overflowed. And it took a couple of days for our landlord to come and fix it so we almost had to call like lawyers and stuff. Because it was very unsanitary.

FRANCIS: The differences between life on and off campus may seem like night and day, and the transition between the two may be a sharp dose of adult reality. Life on and off the Hill is filled with humor, crisis and the memories that make the “college experience” what it is: an opportunity not only to meet strikingly different people, but also to learn to live with them and maybe find some common ground.

“Crazy stories? My dishwasher is broken right now. So, it’s pretty crazy.”

FRANCIS: For Daily Bruin Radio, I’m Quinn Francis.