College of Liberal Arts
University of Minnesota
Twin Cities Campus
101 Pleasant St SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Meghan's Blog

Excited for my house next year!

So it is finally springtime, but it doesn’t feel like it! With all of the blizzards I’ve soaked through two shoes per day and probably three different outfits. It’s beautiful though when I’m in my cozy dorm looking outside. As long as the sun is out I can get myself out of bed to go to class, and Minnesota is definitely less cold, which is helpful too.

On another note, I am very excited about next year. Two of my friends and I are going to be living in the bottom floor of a duplex and we just signed the lease. It gets to be kind of stressful looking for places to live when you aren’t in the dorms. We took as much time looking for a place as I did deciding where I wanted to go to school – if you can believe that.

A little piece of advice though; find a landlord that you like. This process was especially frustrating because we originally wanted to live in this centrally located apartment complex. We contacted the landlord very early on in the year (hoping it was a first-come-first-serve situation), figured out who was living with us, decided how many bedrooms we wanted, and calculated how much we were willing to pay.

The landlord was angry that we came “too early,� never got back to us, and left us not knowing if we had a place to stay next year or not. FORTUNATELY though, my friend, Tony, was looking at the upper level of this duplex and we decided to look at the first floor. We loved it, it was affordable, and it isn’t that far from campus.

So, for all of you out there who think living out of the dorms on campus is unreasonably expensive, this is not the case. Also, I found out that the there is a place on campus that will look over your lease for apartments or houses or whatever, and make sure they are reasonable and fair. This might be in the Career and Community Learning Center, but I’m not sure. This definitely would have been helpful too, since I’m not very experienced in residence-hunting, as you can imagine.

Besides this, my academic life is going pretty well. Mid-terms are coming up again, so I’m getting ready for a long stretch of studying. Hopefully the weather will be better by this weekend so I can do it outside in the Mall area, though! Goodbye for now! Hope next time I blog there will be warmer, brighter days.

March 31st, 2008
Picture of Meghan
  • Class & major: junior; psychology, French studiesminor
  • Hometown: Brookfield, WI
  • Best Thing About Being a CLA Student: You can meet the most diverse and exciting people you've ever encountered. Also, I have the freedom to take all of the classes I want and broaden my experience as a student of the arts.
  • If you come to Minnesota You Gotta Try: Sledding down the hill behind Coffman Union.
  • Favorite campus hangout:Northrop Mall in summer weather because it's nice to just lie on the grass and enjoy the sun while listening to my iPod.
  • When you come to the U of M you gotta try: Sledding down the hill behind Coffman Union.
  • Future goal(s) : To graduate in 4 years successfully and decide a career path that I'd be happy to have the rest of my life, whether that includes graduate school or going right into a field.