Hoping to find an ideal spot off campus, Janika Mohan set out, calling and chasing landlords, coordinating roommates, and preparing to commit to an apartment in Westwood.
But the second-year English student was to be sorely disappointed.
“We would call and get dead ends,” she said. “They made it as hard as possible to try to find housing, and you have to know somebody in order to get into an apartment. If you don’t, you’re screwed.”
Every year hundreds of students elect to move out of the on-campus housing to live in Westwood Village.
Students flood the apartments just off campus, scrapping for the limited number of spaces available, sweating over roommates and lease specifics, and racking up mileage on their sneakers as they hunt down landlords, phone numbers and addresses.
“My fantasy was getting this cute little apartment that would be cheaper, and there would be parking, and I could live with whomever I wanted to, but it was really hard to find housing,” said Mohan, who said she moved off campus because her housing sign-up time was so late she would have had to settle for a triple room with random roommates.
“I did want to move off campus, but my idea of what off-campus living would be like is not at all like it is because of the apartment I’m living in,” she said.
Suzanne Seplow, director of the Office of Residential Life, said many students only spend the beginning of their UCLA years in university housing.
“For UCLA, it’s a culture change because for so long we only guaranteed one year of housing to first-year students. Then it was a two-year guarantee, and now it’s a three,” she said. “Folks get into the mind-set that you stay for two years and then you move off.”
For some students, the decision is an easy one. For others it can be a confounding time, filled with doubt and uncertainty.
“I’m living with some friends: my current roommates and then another friend from a summer program. I guess since we’re going to be third-years, we wanted to move out to the apartments,” said Griselda Bravo, a second-year business economics student who currently lives in Rieber Hall.
Bravo said while she feels the social atmosphere of residence halls is an important aspect of the college experience, she’s outgrown the dorms.
Her sentiments toward on-campus housing are not uncommon.
“I actually really like living on campus. I like having people around. I like the environment,” said Liane Weissenberger, a second-year political science student who will be living in Delta Delta Delta, her sorority house, next year.
Weissenberger said while her primary reasoning for moving off campus is to save money, she would prefer not living in the dorms after her second year.
“I think the dorms are for first-years and second-years, and I think after that you don’t want to be the third- or fourth-year living in the residence halls or even in the suites. You ought to go out and do your own thing with a little less university restriction, and maybe meet more people who are a little more like-minded,” she said.
Weissenberger said she expects that the atmosphere in her house will be exciting and social in ways that are similar to the dorms, and that those around her will be of a more like-minded breed than those in the dorms.
Mohan was also very clear about the absence of social atmosphere she witnessed when she moved off campus.
“I’m not opposed to living in an apartment, but it’s incredibly anti-social ““ I’ve never met one other person that lives in my building,” she said.
For the most part, students who have already turned the page on their on-campus housing years said these issues are resolved by making the change.
“Moving away to the dorms is kind of like that first step of moving away from home, but now you’re actually cooking your own food, you have a living room, you don’t have RAs around you all the time,” said Adam Schaffner, a third-year biochemisty student who moved from Rieber Hall to the university apartments this year.
“You form stronger friendships with your roommates, but at the same time you’re not meeting as many people, so it depends on how you are, how you prefer it,” he said.
Alexander Bice, a second-year psychology student who elected to move into the University Cooperative Housing Association, shared Schaffner’s enthusiasm for the off-campus housing choice.
“The dorms were OK. Living in Dykstra or Hedrick would have been a lot more fun than Courtside and there wasn’t much to do there,” he said. “Moving off campus was easy and I recommend the co-op,” he added.
As with any unknown, students who choose to move off campus are braving a terrain that can be both perilous and profitable, and though they will face new challenges in doing so, their optimism is inspiring if not redeeming.