Essay on Hostel Life | Advantages and Disadvantages

When we are born in this world, all of us have some elders beside us. Most of us have our parents with us when we are born. From the time we are born they start taking care of us. From when we are a baby till when we grow to do things on our own, our parents are always there to take care of us.

They make us eat our food, put us to sleep, bathe us, wash our clothes, make us silent when we cry, bring the games what we want, clear the mess which we do and many other things. There is no end to what our parents do for us. They sacrifice many things for us.

Out of this we will not be able to find out many of these sacrifices they have done for us in the past and are still doing for us. They mean everything to us and we mean everything to them. They are the first people with whom we form an attachment from the time we have first come into the world.

This is the reason why in the starting when we meet any new person, it is difficult for us to be with someone else. Even though we are small at that time we do not trust anyone else except our parents. We always want to stay close with our parents.

Even when they go away from us just for few seconds, we look for them in such a way that left us and have gone somewhere. We cannot let them go away from our eyes even for a fraction of seconds.

When we are big enough to join the primary school, they make us join the school. The first day of going school and staying away from our parents for four to five hours is very difficult for us. We start crying and do want to leave our parents. This continues for the first week but then slowly everything seems to be fine. After we join school our parents help us with our studies.

They make time for us out of their busy schedule so that they help us do our homework and study. No matter how tired they are, they will always be with us and help us. But after we grow up to study and do our homework on our own, our parents do not always sit with us.

But they do keep a check on our studies regularly. Slowly with time, the amount of time we spend with them starts to reduce. This is because they become busier with their work and we can take care of ourselves. We didn’t want them to be with us always even for the smallest things.

We should learn to accept that some day we have to go away from them for various reasons. Some of the parents send their children to hostels when they are still studying in school and are small. They have their own choices for doing this.

While some children go to hostels after finishing their school, some of them go out of their hometown for college. No matter how old we are staying away from our parents for six to seven months at a stretch or sometimes for a year is very heartbreaking.

The thought about it itself makes us melancholic. But at point of time of life we will be staying away from them. So, we should learn about it from before itself. We think that when we stay at hostel far away from our parents, it is very bad. Yes, there are disadvantages of living a hostel life but we learn so many things while staying a hostel.

We learn about various aspects of our life when we stay in hostel. We might not have learnt those things while staying with the family. So, staying in a hostel has both advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of Hostel Life

No matter one does not like to stay in a hostel or not, the hostel life teaches us many things which we would not be able to learn otherwise. Firstly, everything in the hostel has a fixed time. The breakfast, lunch, evening snacks and dinner all of them have a particular time. As there is a particular time for having food, it will be a routine for us and we will not have any stomach problem.

There is a fixed timings for taking bath, washing clothes, studying and charging the phones or laptops. All these fixed timings make the person do everything according to the routine. They become active twenty four hours. They do not have time for lazing around and hence all their work will be completed on time. Due to the fixed timings, the students become punctual in everything. Not only this, but they start learning to manage things on their own.

They are careful with all their belonging so that no hostelites can take their things. They learn cleanliness and tidiness. They keep themselves clean, their room and clothes too. This would not happen if they would be staying at home because all these things would be taken care by their parents.

If they would be staying at home, they would waste a lot of time. They would eat their food, study and their work whenever they wanted. But this cannot be done while staying in a hostel. The students become disciplined. They are not dependent on anyone for their work.

They do all their work by themselves. The students usually do not do like the food that they get in hostel. But they do not have any other choice except eating whatever they get. The hostelites cannot stay out of the campus for long even if they want to spend some free time outside the campus.

This is because every hostel has curfew. They will be in problem if they cross the curfew. So, they learn to maintain their time for everything.

People come from different areas to stay in the hostel. This makes the students interact and cooperate with all of them because everyone is staying in the same hostel. They start to know about new things related to their culture and place. So, it is necessary to talk with each other and maintain a proper behaviour with them. The students learn to have friendship bonds staying in the hostel.

This does not mean that the students who stay at home do not understand anything about friendship bonds. The difference is that the ones who stays in hostel understand the importance more than them. This is because it is their hostel mates who become family for them, be with them and take care of them.

They are the ones who will be there during all the good and bad times far away from the family. If they do not like each other still they need to accept and stay together.

The relationship with the family can be seen between the hostel mates as well. When the students stay in a hostel, they get only limited amount of money. By this they learn not to waste their money and spend them only for important things. They start learning to maintain their expenditure.

The hostel life teaches the students so much that they follow the same thing when they go back home. This makes their parents happy seeing their children more disciplined, punctual and understanding from before. Even though hostel life is very strict and takes away our freedom, but this is for our betterment. Our personality and many other things improve after we having been living a hostel life for a few years.

Disadvantages of Hostel Life

The disadvantages of a hostel life make a student sadder even though they learn so many new things. Staying in a hostel means being far away from the family. No one likes to be away from family for so long. Family cannot be replaced by anyone. No matter how close a student becomes to the hostel mates, the importance of family still remains the same.

The students feel that when they are living a hostel life their freedom is taken away. They cannot do whatever they want. At home too parents are strict but it is not like the one in hostel. They cannot eat according to their wish. They need to get used to with the hostel food.

They cannot study late night because it is not allowed in a hostel. If they miss any of the meal, they have to remain hungry. When they get sick, they miss the family because no one can replace that care which our family has while we are sick. The students are forced to follow all the rules and regulations even they do not like it.

They cannot stay out of the hostel for long due to the curfew. After one point of time every students gets fed up of the hostel food. During such times they wish to eat delicious food from outside. But if they do that, they need to cut down on their expenditures which might be necessary.

They get very limited amount of pocket money. So, they cannot spend their money they want. Ragging is a very serious offence at every place. People who rag others get punished. But still we hear the students get ragged by the seniors in hostel. This example can be seen in the movie 3 Idiots.

The students miss their family a lot. They miss each and everything about home. Sometimes they get so lost thinking about home that they do not feel like doing anything. They take their own time to get out of the thought that they are away from home and they cannot do anything about it. Instead wait for the holidays to go back home.