How I Found Housing at UMass Boston
My first year attending UMass Boston as a commuter student was an entirely new experience for me, I never imagined college being any other way than living on campus in a dorm, but UMB is one of a kind with the majority of its population being commuter and off-campus students. After completing my first full year, I decided UMB was where I wanted to stay, and where I could plan on being for the next few years to come. With that, came the same idea that it was time to leave home and find a place of my own; I first had to figure out how I was going to afford the cost of living on my own, and second had to find somewhere!
The most crucial factor to consider before anything else, is to assure you have the funds to actually move. The Boston area is one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, as a full-time college student that was only working part-time on a minimum wage salary, I knew I would not be able to afford a room with just my personal savings. The most obvious, and best suited option for me, was to apply for a student loan that would cover the cost of my monthly rent, and I would use my own money to pay for electric, cable, and groceries/housing supplies. There are several limitations to obtaining a student loan, such as your credit score and your age, therefore it was necessary for me to have a co-signer on my application, which my aunt was fortunately happy to do after I presented my plans to her.
I did some brief searching online to look at apartments in the UMB area, and found most 1 bedroom units costs around $1300. For my first year I wanted to save the most amount of money possible, so I decided that I would split a 1-bedroom with someone else, bringing that price down 50% to roughly $650. Next, I budgeted by multiplying $650 by 12, for the entire 12-month calendar year that I would be staying, which gave me a total price of $7,800. My aunt agreed to help, and I immediately began searching for a place I liked. My only requirement was I had to bring along my two cats! (pictured)😊
Searching for housing can sometimes be a tedious task that could take up to months, I was fortunate enough to stumble on the conversation of housing with a close friend of mine, who just so happened to be looking for someone to sublease her old roommates room during the upcoming school year. Even better, she told me that for me to be sharing a one-bedroom, it would be $630 a month, saving me an extra $250 on my student loan. She was excited to hear that I would be bringing my 2 cats with me, and she would even be bringing one of hers. We immediately decided to move forward with it and found 3 other roommates to join us.
We cleaned up the house and took a series of photos, and then posted them onto the UMB off-campus housing Facebook page. After about 2 weeks, we luckily found a group of 3 girls from the same hometown, who were all UMB students looking to move into an apartment. We went over a few things about the house, the cats, important things like smoking, drinking, and bedtimes, and all 5 of us seemed to mutually agree upon everything. By August 1st, everything was set in place, and I moved in on August 15th!
We saw the importance of the conversations we held prior to setting the move in motion once everyone was moved in; we all were on the same page, off to a great start, and to this day get along great and have maintained true friendships.