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.
You'll need a tool set, or at least a hammer and a set of screwdrivers, just to have around for hanging pictures or fixing random apartment mishaps. A trash can or two might come in handy from time to time. And no more mooching paper towels from the common room bathroom - that ship has sailed. You'll probably want to buy paper towels and toilet paper in bulk to save some cash and time.
In terms of furniture, you may find yourself with more space to fill than you've ever had before. If you have the space, a table and chairs is great for studying or having people over to cook. If you study at a desk, you'll obviously need to buy a desk and chair. Also, a couch, an armchair and a coffee table can make your apartment a much more sociable place. Buying these things secondhand from graduating students will be easier on your wallet and your possibly limited transportation options. Nobody wants to attempt to squeeze an armchair into a small car or onto the Collegetown shuttle. If you don't have the room or money for all these furnishings, everyone will probably just end up on your bed.
And on that note, if you only buy one thing for your new off-campus digs, please make it a bed. As with many things in life, the bigger, the better - and beds are no exception. There's no better reason to move off campus than the prospect of getting a larger bed. Why would anyone live off campus and have twin beds? It's a pretty wonderful feeling to be able to lounge around without fear of falling out of bed. Get a bunch of pillows and a fluffy comforter to make your bed a place where you (and hopefully other people) want to lie down.
While these things come at a cost, it's a small price to pay for the sheer joy of escaping the institutional life of the dorms. It's good to make your own decisions and figure out how you want to live as opposed to how someone else expects you to live. That is one of the most important things to learn in college, and if living off campus helps you learn it, then we should all get out of the dorms and into apartments of our own.
