Housing: Apartment Hunting
Loyola requires its students to live “on campus” during Freshman and Sophomore year. Some disagree with the policy, but I found it a good way of weaning me off dependency from my parents and later the university.
But by Junior year most people start looking for apartments. Some people prefer to stay in the residence halls, but since I chose not to do that I can not speak much to that experience. However, as a graduating Senior I am going through the same process that most Sophomores are going through as I look for a new place to live.
But this time around I found some pretty neat resources. One is called Mapnificent.
This site shows you how far you can get in any amount of time using public transportation. You can use a sliding scale to adjust the time of the trip and watch the available area change. They also have options to change the time of day or day of week and whether you can use a bike in your trip.
The second is called Walk Score. It gives you a score based on the walk-ability of your address. You can see how many coffee shops, grocery stores, music venues, and more are within walking distance of any location.
Armed with these two sites I feel like I’m going to be able to find a pretty sweet place for next year.