A handful of students can choose to remain on campus beyond the two-year living requirement. Credit: Cori Wade | For The Lantern

While students are searching for the perfect off-campus abode, others have found their next place is one they already know: Ohio State’s on-campus housing.

Only about 200 to 300 upperclassmen remain on campus after completing the two-year living requirement, Dave Isaacs, spokesman for the Office of Student Life, said.

Moustafa El-Mahdy, a third-year in operations management, decided to be one of them.  

“I was like, ‘OK, one more year. Why not?’” El-Mahdy said.

El-Mahdy said that by the time he found out he wouldn’t be a resident adviser the following year, he thought it was too late to be looking at off-campus housing, and his mother advised him that remaining in the dorms would be safer.

Despite being involved in campus activities, such as an office assistant and a peer leader, El-Mahdy said it still feels odd to be surrounded by people younger than himself.

“It’s definitely weird being an upperclassman and being on a floor with people in a different grade as you,” he said.

El-Mahdy said he values the community aspect of living on campus, which keeps him in touch with campus events; he also enjoys having a meal plan.

Making connections through on-campus activities has also helped him combat a problem some of his friends living off campus have run into.

“Even though I don’t talk to the people on my floor very much, I have friends who live off campus, and they’ll be like, ‘Yeah, it’s really lonely,’” El-Mahdy said.  

Erin O’Daniel, a fourth-year in environmental engineering, said she wasn’t quite ready to make the transition to living  off campus, so she accepted a position as a resident adviser.

“I felt like I maybe hadn’t had a great understanding of campus resources yet,” O’Daniel said. “I felt like I had more to learn.”

O’Daniel said new campus features, such as the North Recreation Center, which opened her sophomore year, influenced her decision to stay on campus.

“I felt like there were all these new things popping up on campus that I wanted to have the opportunity to be closer to,” she said.

O’Daniel said that she enjoys being close to classes and having the ability to come home between classes, but dining can be touch-and-go.

While she likes the convenience of always having a dining option nearby, O’Daniel says she still has times where she misses home-cooked meals.

Both O’Daniel and El-Mahdy said a drawback of staying on campus was that their friends who moved off campus are much farther away. They also said they felt like they were missing out on the off-campus housing experiences, like signing a lease and paying bills.

“I’ve never had to pay bills and stuff like that, and I still don’t really know how that works,” O’Daniel said. “I’m about to graduate and go off and get a ‘big girl’ job, and I’m going to be thrown right into it.”

Although living on campus as an upperclassman has its drawbacks, O’Daniel said she would advise someone in her position to live somewhere they haven’t before, because even moving from Scott Hall to Norton House has been a learning experience.

While keeping in touch with friends is key, El-Mahdy thinks that meeting new people and staying involved in activities outside of the residence hall improves the experience.

“Basically, don’t close yourself off,” he said.