Residence

Residence is a great place to live for first year student even though it is expensive. It is a sheltered way to move out of home because you have to learn to live with other people, cook for yourself, clean and just keep a house running smoothly without having to also juggle bills etc. I am currently living in my school's residence which definitely has it's ups and downs. I have enjoyed my residence experience for the most part so far and would definitely recommend it to others. It's a great learning experience but be aware that it's not always paradise.
Pros: 

• I'm a less than 5 minute walk to get into the school from my 4th floor suite.
• Furniture included
• Surrounded by people so it's relatively easy to make friends. 
• Shared common room
• Your own room!
• Full kitchen

Cons:

• I have had 5 roommates. Two of them dropped out, and the other two switched rooms and then we gained two new roomies so I now have 3.
• Shared common area
• Shared bathrooms
• Expensive
• I'm on the 4th floor and there are no elevators.
• The walls are paper thin, you can hear everything and I do mean everything. 
• You don't have someone to clean for you, and you have to share the tasks of cleaning the place.

So I know that's a pretty weak list of pros and cons because all in all it's not too bad to live here! Since there are (supposed to be) 6 of us, we have a fully functional kitchen which is great since I have recently discovered a love of baking and cooking. The shared common room is a pro and a con because everyone can hang out there which can be a good thing and a bad thing especially when the room is divided. Last semester we all had a difference in opinion of the temperature of the room. Three girls wanted it colder and the other two and I wanted it to stay the same or warmer. The worst thing that happened was the passive aggressive opening of the common room window, even at temperatures in the negatives. After yet another meeting with Rez management we came to the conclusion that the common room window could only be open if they were actively in the common room. This meant that the three of them stayed in the common room almost all day for an entire week. But before that all happened when we were all on good terms we all hung out in the common room majority of the time, most rooms do. That is why I put it on both the pro list and the con list.
I love having my own room, especially since it is bigger than my room at home but sharing walls kinda sucks, I'll have to make a post about that later. Even though the Cons list is bigger than the Pro list, most of it comes from having a shared living space which you'll have to deal with or else pay crazy rent for your own place, which has its own set of pros and cons. At least when you have roommates and floor mates you'll virtually never be alone, you'll almost always be able to find someone to talk to!