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I lived off campus. In hindsight, I wish I had dormed (but I had just left the military in the days they packed 4-6 to a room).
If you want to live off campus because you want more privacy and space, it's not stupid.
If you want to live off campus because you think campus is 'boring' and want more of a social life, it's stupid. I did not perceive that living off campus provides a more exciting social life, and it brings some unwelcome responsibilities: paying bills. Commuting to and from campus, even if it's just a walk. Shopping for and cooking food. Weird neighbors you can't sic the RA on because they aren't breaking any laws.
I feel that I would be "over" it too, but it's being interpreted as me hating my school. .
No, it's your other comments that lead people to believe you're not happy at your school, and that you'd be happier in a bigger school. Comments like, "There's nothing going on here on the weekends", "my friends never want to do anything besides study and hang out in the lounge", etc.
Aside from the apparent fact that you chose the wrong school for you, I would support your move to an apartment in your junior year. My son graduated from Ohio State not long ago. They require you to dorm for the first 2 years, but he got an apartment for his junior and senior years and he loved it. He was able to eat when & what he wanted, he learned to cook for himself, he adopted a cat and had a lot more privacy. It's sort of like taking that next step toward maturity if you do it responsibly. The best part was that he was able to shack up with his girlfriends whenever he wanted.
The negative side of the bold is that you have to do your own cooking or pay someone else to cook for you (eat at restaurants, IOW). Sometimes kids have pretty crummy diets this way. My younger daughter lived the first two years in a dorm (I refuse to call it dorming) at a medium-sized university, then transferred to a large public university where it was common for students to rent apartments after freshman year. She rented an apartment and got to learn the drawbacks as well as the positives of this type of living. College town landlords can and do take advantage of students, utility bills need to be arranged for and paid monthly, etc. Her final year she lived in some university owned apartments (not dorms, suites, etc) and that was much better. Utilities were included in the rent, they have nice laundry rooms where you could load a card to pay for the W/Ds, they weren't so picky about you getting the rent in exactly on the day due, etc. Still had to do her own cooking.
My other daughter went to a small college that made it very difficult to move out of the dorms. Senior year she and some friends did live in one of those "suite" type style dorms. At the time she kind of chafed under the dorm living, but in retrospect thought it was good to not have to worry about all the cooking, etc. There weren't any "visitation" rules for the opposite sex, it was more what the roommates would put up with, which is the same in an apartment.
The OP will learn to cook whenever s/he gets an apartment, whether that is while in college or some other time after graduation. I have a hard time believing there's much if any money saved by renting; there are all sorts of incidental expenses with running a home that you don't have in the dorms.
Aside from the apparent fact that you chose the wrong school for you, I would support your move to an apartment in your junior year. My son graduated from Ohio State not long ago. They require you to dorm for the first 2 years, but he got an apartment for his junior and senior years and he loved it. He was able to eat when & what he wanted, he learned to cook for himself, he adopted a cat and had a lot more privacy. It's sort of like taking that next step toward maturity if you do it responsibly. The best part was that he was able to shack up with his girlfriends whenever he wanted.
Many dorm residents can do that, too. Most dorms these days have a kitchen on each floor for residents to share.
Yeah, we had campus housing with kitchenettes, and apartment-style housing with full kitchens as well.
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