When my roommates and I were thinking about where we would live our senior year, one issue stood out to us. One of the five of us would be leaving campus second semester to travel home and student teach. While there are five-bedroom apartments available on campus, the question was, what would happen second semester? The two options we faced were trying to find a sublessee to take over that room, with the possibility of living with a stranger for our final semester, or my one roommate having to pay for a semester of rent when she wasn’t living on campus.

After talking with friends, we were presented with a third option: have two of us share a room for a semester. Now, after living with five people in a four-bedroom apartment, I can say there are both positive and negative aspects to this choice.

1. Negative: Piles

Probably the most difficult part of this living arrangement was for the two people sharing a room. That also means that these two girls had to share a closet, desk and dresser. Without enough storage, that meant having many piles around their room and the apartment. They made it work, but I have never seen a room get so messy.

Additionally, they had to add a lofted bunk bed to the room so they would both have space to sleep. With different class schedules, it was like being back in the dorms and having to get used to sleeping through the roommates alarm clock. They were troupers and made it work for a whole semester.

2. Positive: Split the bill

For the two roommates who split a room for the semester, this provided the economic benefit of splitting the rent.

On-campus apartments can be expensive, so it made the total apartment much more affordable for both of these roommates.

There were also benefits to the other apartment residents. Being able to split the cable and electric utilities between five people instead of four really adds up over a semester.

Everyone felt a little ease on their wallet for a semester.

3. Negative: Packed fridge

With five girls, space can be very tight in the apartment. We mostly realized how small the space was after the first grocery trip. There simply were not enough cabinets to fit everything.

We added some extra shelves with bins to put dry foods like cereal and mac and cheese, and I brought a mini fridge to put in my room to help clear space in the fridge. Also, we started sharing things that take up a lot of fridge space, such as milk, eggs and orange juice. It just took a little creativity to make it all fit.

4. Positive: No randos

As I mentioned earlier, the main reason we wanted to fit five people into our apartment was so we would not have to live with a random subletter for our final semester on campus.

While we are more than willing to make more friends, there are some people you just don’t want to live with. It would not have been as much fun to have a stranger living with us, so our choice made the most sense; we got to live with our best friends.

5. Negative: You’ve got mail

As our extra roommate was not technically on our lease, she also wasn’t on the mailbox and couldn’t have any of her mail sent to her own apartment.

Thankfully she had her sorority house, which she could still use as an address, but it was something we didn’t even think about when making these plans. In addition, it was difficult for her to get an extra copy of the keys to the apartment made, as they are not supposed to be duplicated and only four keys came with it. Small difficulties like these were overlooked at first, but we found a way to make them work.

6. Positive: Full house

It sounds simple, but the more people around, the more fun an apartment can be. With five people, it is almost impossible to ever be home alone or not have somebody to watch “The Bachelor” or to eat dinner with. The year before I lived in a three bedroom apartment, and if both of my roommates went home for a weekend, it felt very lonely.

This fall, that was almost never the case. The overcrowded aspect meant that we all grew closer and made that many more memories together.

Kelly is a senior in LAS and can be reached at [email protected].