When it comes to OC Housing, it’s easy to find something to talk about. But I want to address one issue in particular: what does Oklahoma Christian University decide to do with those of us who, like me, live farther than 20 minutes away from campus?
I know for a fact I’m not the only student in this dilemma. Home for me is an eight-hour drive. Normally, I finish my finals on Tuesday or Wednesday and check out immediately, but this year one of my best friends in getting married in Tulsa. My plan for this was to relax through finals week, drive the two hours to Tulsa on Saturday and go to the wedding, come back to campus that night, checkout and leave bright and early Sunday morning for Houston. It was fairly simple – until I got the email about housing.
For the residents of Phase IV and many other housing areas on campus, Friday is the very last day to sign out. Anything later than that and you are fined. Which left me with exactly two options: I can either miss my best friend’s wedding, or stay homeless in Oklahoma.
This changed all of my plans for that week. I spent that night looking at hotel rates in Tulsa, freaking out over staying in an unknown area of a state I’m not from, probably not in the greatest part of town either, since my budget won’t let me stay at anything nice.
Luckily, I do have friends in Tulsa happy to let me spend the night. So I will not be homeless, I will not be driving home by myself at 3 in the morning, and I will not have to purchase a seedy hotel room in a sketchy part of town.
But what about the people who are staying and living in the apartments on campus over the summer? These are the people who literally have nowhere else to go. They are staying here on campus, because most likely they simply live too far away to go home. Are they supposed to purchase a sketchy hotel room? Exactly what kind of housing options does OC expect them to have?
If the university insists on kicking us out by Friday, they should at least provide some sort of options for those of us who live too far away to simply go home on Friday. The university cannot expect its students to suddenly and magically have a place to stay, or options to live in besides campus. It’s unrealistic.
If OC is supposed to be home, housing should not have to be such a struggle.
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