I am one of the few unlucky people who applied for the offcampus lottery and was shut down.
Rather than just saying ‘Oh, well I guess I’ll wait for the next round of the lottery,’ I find myself asking why is there even an off-campus lottery. Our school is facing a big overcrowding issue, yet they still decide that they should make moving off campus a problem.
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Students at Fairfield currently face overcrowded townhouses and forced triples, and some juniors are even forced to live in dorms for a third year in a row. Two years of living in a dorm is bad enough but to force juniors, 21-year-olds in many cases, to live in dorms rather than find an off campus alternative is cruel.
I have to ask myself why the school doesn’t let people just live off campus to alleviate some of the obvious stress placed on on-campus housing. Rather than helping to facilitate a move off campus, the school chooses to make it as difficult as possible to move off campus.
The idea that most students at Fairfield will never experience living in an off-campus situation is silly to me. Not having any experience making the independent financial decisions that come with living at your own place seems like it would leave students unprepared for the post college world.
Rather than give its students a chance to learn and grow on their own, Fairfield would like to continue to treat us like a bunch of prep school students who aren’t smart enough to make our own decisions. I can understand the schools reluctance to allow students under 21 to live off campus, but the fact that there is even a process by which to get off campus as a senior is asinine.
‘It’s just dumb that there’s an off campus lottery. I’ve never heard of any other school that wants to keep you on campus, particularly as an upperclassman,’ said Kyle Morris ’10.
I understand the fact that we live in a residential area and that many of the year-round beach residents may not be wholly appreciative of the behavior of some of the students at Fairfield. That doesn’t mean the school should make a lottery system to intentionally make it difficult for students to live where they want to. Rather than acting as an obstacle for our living arrangements, the school should act to help get us better deals and make sure we are treated fairly by landlords.
I have a friend at Quinnipiac who is a junior and already lives in an off-campus house. When I asked him what steps he had to take to live in that house, he was confused more than anything else. He simply called a landlord and signed a lease. Students at Quinnipiac don’t have to do anything other than find a house and just tell the school where they’re living.
There’s no lottery system, they just make their own decisions. My friend was dumbfounded that there was even a process that has to be followed to get off campus and offered his condolences.’
So now I sit here hoping that Fairfield University can find it in their hearts to actually let me participate in what is arguably the best part of going to Fairfield. The beach community was one of the deciding factors behind my coming to Fairfield. If for any reason I don’t end up being allowed to live there it would be an enormous disappointment.
I think the school needs to stop being so controlling of the students at Fairfield, particularly upperclassmen. The idea of having to apply to live in a house that doesn’t even belong to the University is just making what should be a very simple process a monster headache for some.’ ‘ ‘
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