Anyone who has lived in a cabin, can you tell me cost to heat (Anchorage: how much, transfer)

[Frostnip]

You can't really reasonably winter in a normal camper in Fairbanks anyway, unless you're parking it inside someone's heated garage.

UAF has an actual power plant. I believe it's coal, with oil generators as an emergency backup system, and that they're installing or have recently installed an additional biomass system. There's some kind of big upgrade happening, but I haven't paid much attention to the details. The campus is independent of the commercial power grid.

[riceme]

Frostnip is correct about the powerplant and backup at the university. Don't know if you care, but I love this sort of stuff, so here's a link to some info

Project background | Combined Heat and Power Plant

I both understand and am empathetic to your reasons to not wanting to live on campus. As far as renting a room goes, I can assure you that not too many folks around here would care about which or how many firearms you own. I would encourage you to not write-off renting a room. Just as an example, half of the downstairs of our house was built for the nanny to live in (no more nanny, so no one lives there). My boyfriend wants to rent it out but I say noooo. I just don't want a stranger in the house, especially since he's been gone a lot lately. And, uhh, we're awesome (duh! lol), we have a gun safe full of all sorts of fun toys, and totally don't care what other people do, so long as they're not hurting anyone else. Live and let live. There are definitely people here who would mesh with your needs.

Regarding the camper: ditto what Frostnip said. You could easier and more cost efficiently live in a rented heated garage (yes, that is a thing here) than in a camper in the winter, not that I ever see them for rent. You don't want to wake up dead one morning. And yes, propane is ungodly expensive up here.

About things breaking in the cold... what you experienced is pretty on-target normal for Fairbanks. I call that an 'Alaskan Slide'... sort of like a 'California Stop' but different, cos you actually tried to stop, you just couldn't. Usually it involves sliding through a stop sign or light on the ice, but failing hydraulics certainly qualifies.

Aside from hydraulics hating cold weather, metal, plastic and petroleum products do as well. Car door handles snapping off is not uncommon. Plastic things left out in the cold shatter. If you touch something metal with no gloves on when it's cold outside it will 'burn' your hand, and you will not soon forget. Propane gels up (freezes) at about -40*F. Forget electric windows. You better have them up when it freezes, cos they're probably not moving til Spring. Same for manual locking hubs. I had to "defrost" mine with a blowtorch once. There is a seemingly endless list of things that get totally fubar in the cold, and during your first winter it seems that about six times a day you're sighing, looking to the sky, and asking, "really? REALLY??"

But wait til you see the Northern Lights. It's like a religious experience, or an opera in the sky... It's like something that cannot properly be described with words, and it makes all the bs worth it. I was 20-feet outside my cabin and I nearly froze to death the first time I saw them. I could not bear for it to end and to be torn away from them.

[Haolejohn]

I will never forget my first close encounter with the lights. It was in October and I was in Anchorage for a conference. Of course, I was doing a shopping run at the post office around 11 pm, when the ladies start talking about the lights being out. The one lady nonchalantly says, "It's just the green ones."
I was amazed that someone could be so meh, whatever, about the lights. I didn't run out, b/c I might have had some guns I was shipping, but by the time I got out, they were not visible (cloud coverage was pretty bad).

In the village, my wife was getting the show of her life. Multiple colors, and they were just dancing. It was another year and half, before I got to see them.

It truly is one of the best experiences of my life.

[6.7traveler]

You don't want to live on a "cabin farm". That's like the fairbanks version of a trailer park. The whole point of putting up with a dry cabin would be for some privacy.

Anyways, I'm sure there's got to be places on campus where you don't have to move your stuff out multiple times a year.... But maybe not. If not, I'd grab the apartment if there was only a $100 or so month difference between the two. You'd have at least an extra $100 a month cost in water, laundry, showers, etc. not to mention the headaches and time suck a cabin requires vs an apartment.

Also, electric heat is never a good idea in fairbanks, or anywhere for that matter, no matter how efficient they claim it to be. That's going to cost a pretty penny to heat and I doubt it would be able to keep up on the real cold days.

[Frostnip]

You don't have to move all of your belongings out of the halls over the winter break, AFAIK. You may have to leave yourself, though, as some of the halls are unstaffed then.

[atmetal]

Originally Posted by jdhpa

I don't know about UAF or your particular degree program, but engineering intern programs can pay well enough to cover most of the cost of going to college. That's (mostly) how I got through (also picked up part time jobs). It took 5 years to graduate and there was zero free time, but I graduated with no debt. It may be worth your time to re-look at colleges / degrees with that objective in mind, graduating with $100k+ in debt is scary.

Good luck with whatever you decide

I'm glad you said this because my advisor said something similar, so it only increases my optimism. I'm sure most people perceive internships to be unpaid, so to go from that to an internship that pays nearly enough to pay for college is really surprising. I'm guessing the earnings take the form of educational assistance instead of a traditional salary.

[jdhpa]

Originally Posted by atmetal

I'm glad you said this because my advisor said something similar, so it only increases my optimism. I'm sure most people perceive internships to be unpaid, so to go from that to an internship that pays nearly enough to pay for college is really surprising. I'm guessing the earnings take the form of educational assistance instead of a traditional salary.

It's a salary. If UAF has an intern program they should be able to tell you what types of salaries companies are paying interns in your field.

[pittsflyer]

Originally Posted by Haolejohn

Not only what RiceMe says, but have you ever experienced Fairbanks winters? Or roughed it, which a cabin kind of requires.

I would recommend campus housing if at all possible. I just finished at UAF (distance learning) and I felt their housing was affordable and super convenient. I was mainly looking at it for a summer session though.

Does UAF now offer distance learning for all its programs?

[Haolejohn]

Originally Posted by pittsflyer

Does UAF now offer distance learning for all its programs?

Pitts, I have no idea. I know they have many. I just wrapped up a 24 credit endorsement in my field. Could have done a masters, but who needs two masters?

[pittsflyer]

Originally Posted by Haolejohn

Pitts, I have no idea. I know they have many. I just wrapped up a 24 credit endorsement in my field. Could have done a masters, but who needs two masters?

What would the masters have been in? Had you done the masters.