Living on Campus VS Commuting to NYU: From a Resident of New Jersey

Resident Assistants (RAs) at NYU play a crucial role in helping first-year students transition into college life. RA’s, usually juniors and seniors, reside on each floor of all our residence halls and focus on building a welcoming and connected community. They team up with the Building Leadership Team (BLT), who are the professional staff in the building (ie. the real adults) to hold engaging events throughout the academic year. 

For example, my first-year RA did a make-your-own waffle event in her dorm room for our floor: providing waffle mix, whipped cream, and maple syrup. Often, the RA’s in each building will collaborate to do larger external events, such as: building trips to the MET Museum, opportunities to see shows on Broadway, Yankee’s Games. Some of the events are even geared toward student living & living alone for the first time. They do cleaning events, study breaks, and opportunities for career development. 

Your RA is going to be a great support system when living on-campus, having the student experience and university resources available to residents throughout the school year. Through their hardwork and dedication, they achieve their objective to foster community within the different buildings, making campus living feel like a “home-away-from-home.”

One of the reasons why I chose NYU was the diversity of passions students had here. Although I study an arts-based curriculum at the Tisch School of the Arts, I wanted exposure to areas of interest within the university. Through NYU housing, I had an additional opportunity to connect with people outside of my area of study and diverse experiences. 

In my first-year, my housing assignment was selected randomly. Of my 3 suitemates, they all studied different things; Film & Television, Global Public Health, and Biology/Public Policy. Geographically, we were all from different places; New York, Florida, Nepal. NYU Housing does a really great job ensuring that residents are exposed to diverse student perspectives while also prioritizing your preferences for living.

The realization that spending 2 hours commuting daily would limit my time on campus and opportunities to explore with the friends I would make solidified my decision to live on campus. I would rather reallocate that travel time to the small moments I wouldn’t have found outside of NYU housing. For me, these were the moments in our dorm’s living room when my suitemates and I stayed up until 2 a.m., writing and playing songs on our guitars. The “city never sleeps” mentality continues within the NYU community. Therefore, I didn’t want to feel like I was missing out on anything overnight if I were in New Jersey.

Oftentimes, commuting might be a more flexible option for students due an array of reasons. Regardless of how close your bed is to NYU’s campus, as an NYU student, you can always find a sense of home within NYU’s community. For those who choose to commute– We have a Commuters Lounge in our Kimmel Center for Student Life and a Commuter’s Den in our Lipton Residence Hall. These are two spots on campus where you can find similar communities found in NYU Housing. However, living on campus has filled my college experience with so much life and joy.

So although ‘home’ for me is a 45 minute train ride on the NJ Transit, I wouldn’t have had the same college experience if I didn’t live on campus.