Living in Holden Hall freshman year, I ate three meals a day, spent time with my roommate in our little, square-shaped home and endured many nights drowning in a pool of my own sweat because there was no air conditioner.

Now that I’m subleasing an apartment in Cedar Village, I’m lucky to make myself two meals a day, and while my roommates and I still spend time together, we each have our own space. Even though I still suffer through sweaty summer nights, we make do with fans.

Even though most of my meals have ended up being microwavable, I can easily say that I prefer apartment life to dorm life.

It wasn’t that I didn’t get along well with my roommate, as she’s one of my closest friends. My experience in the dorms only lacked one thing — freedom.

Sure, the dorms offered me a sense of freedom beyond what I’d known at home. But nothing compares to really having an adult lifestyle and making your own rules.

Living in my own apartment means that I can come home at any hour without having to flash my ID at someone. I’m not restricted to the cafeteria menus, and I can cook what I actually want to eat, and do some experimenting — believe me when I say that I’m no Gordon Ramsay.

The transition was strange at first. The only time I’d ever lived away from home was in a dorm room, which is essentially just a glorified cube. I would become antsy and feel enclosed when I was hanging out there. It was hard to really focus because I was eager to escape the room’s confines and just go somewhere — anywhere — else.

In an apartment, I have my own space and a lot more of it. I still share a room, but spend most of my time sitting by the window in the living room so I can look outside.

There’s space in the kitchen to cook meals or, in my case, microwave and experiment with them. I never knew that macaroni and cheese and barbecue sauce could go so well together.

Most of the meals I’ve had the time and patience to make have been either of the microwavable variety, peanut butter and jelly or some form of macaroni and cheese. I’ve had to budget for groceries, which wasn’t something I stressed over while living in the dorms.

The transition helped with something that I claim much of my college experience has done — it helped me grow up a little bit more.

The transition from a dorm room to an apartment building has been smooth for me, and not nearly as intimidating as I originally thought it would be. It ended up being somewhere I preferred to the dorms, even though I did not excel at living as an adult at first, seeing as I only just figured out that certain grocery stores are cheaper than others.

Apartment life offers a different type of growth compared to dorm life, and it brings with it new, adult responsibilities.

Casey Holland is a State News reporter. Reach her at cholland@statenews.com.