Diary of a Gen Z Student: Coming home after the college semester has been a rude awakening

Jane Cowan: 'I’m no longer paying extortionate rent, walking on sticky floors through my kitchen, and if I’m too tired to cook, I know my mother will handle dinner.'

Back in January, I wrote an article about my intentions to start living a bit less like an OAP with a 9pm bedtime, and a bit more like a 22-year-old with some semblance of youthful vigour. At the time, I was moving into university accommodation for the first time, and I was determined to break up with healthy habits like drinking in moderation and showing up to my lectures well-rested. I felt that I wasn’t having the early-20s experience I had been sold.

I think I achieved those goals in plenty of ways while living on my university campus. I thought I would struggle with being thrown into an apartment with a group of students I didn’t know, but it was some of the best fun I’ve experienced. I made great friends with (most of) my flatmates. 

We would grocery shop together, message each other to co-ordinate our dinner times, and go for midweek pints in the college bar more often than I would care to tell my doctor. Plenty of friends from my course lived on campus as well, so bringing our lunches to someone’s kitchen between lectures became a regular occurrence. We would get the train to the beach on the weekends and have late-night meltdowns about submitting our dissertations afterwards. It was blissfully messy.

Last week, as the semester finished, I had to pack up that apartment and move back home. I love my parents, but it has been quite the rude awakening to come home. Living far away from friends again, having my parents express concern about the neatness of my bedroom, and my consumption of caffeinated tea after dinner. 

Of course, it’s great in lots of ways. I’m no longer paying extortionate rent, walking on sticky floors through my kitchen, and if I’m too tired to cook, I know my mother will handle dinner.

When I reflect on what it was I enjoyed so much, it was the sense of independence. It was finally possible to feel a bit more adult. I didn’t mind the chaos of the laundry room, with four machines shared between a couple of hundred students. 

I was able to ignore my messy, shared kitchen, and the fact that it always vaguely smelled of yesterday’s alcohol. I was happy enough to deal with all of that stuff, because it felt like part of the package of sharing an apartment in your early 20s.

Jane Cowan: 'When you don’t live around your friends, you will end up socialising less. You can’t go for a spontaneous pint when you all live upwards of an hour away from each other. That shift is something I’m already struggling with.' Picture: Moya Nolan

So, coming home has felt a bit like taking a developmental step backwards. I had gotten so comfortable with the independence, not having to text someone that I’ll be out for dinner, or that I’m on a night out and I’ll be coming home late. It became so effortless to socialise. 

Of course, when you don’t live around your friends, you will end up socialising less. You can’t go for a spontaneous pint when you all live upwards of an hour away from each other. That shift is something I’m already struggling with.

Experiencing both versions of being in my 20s has allowed me to register just how much young people are missing out on when we can’t afford to move out of home. I already had my suspicions about the stymying of your adult life that is bound to happen when you live at home as an adult. 

At the time, I knew that if I didn’t move into student accommodation for one semester, it would be a long time before I could think of moving out of home again. Regular leases are difficult enough to come by in the rental market, never mind the four-month one I managed to secure through my university.

In January, when I set myself the challenge of experiencing life a little more as a young adult, I didn’t appreciate how much those experiences would depend on not coming home to your parents in the evening. I felt that the amount of time I spent drinking herbal teas at home was only because I was part of a generation that doesn’t put ourselves out there enough.

I thought Gen Z was too busy running half-marathons and learning to crochet to spend half of their lives in a nightclub. And I don’t mean to slander those things. I, too, have fallen victim to the half marathon buzz. 

But I’m not sure that those things are decisions being made by Gen Zers, so much as they are symptoms of having your movement into adulthood postponed by the fact that most of us have no choice but to live at home. It turns out, enjoying your life as a young adult is much easier when you actually feel like a young adult. Who knew!