Research Topic

The topic for my research paper is to look at the effects that moving away from home into a college dorm room has on a young adults sense of self-image. More specifically, I would like to look into the scenario of moving from the suburbs to the urban surround. I think this would be an interesting study because this in my opinion is one of the hardest transformations a person can go through. Not only are you moving away from your friends and family, but you are also leaving the slow paced life of your past. The city is much more active and dangerous, causing many students anxiety and stress for their first year of college. College is stressful enough; moving to a new area, making new friends, sharing a room with someone you don’t know, and resisting the temptation of peer pressure. Studying these factors and adding in the ideas of self-identity due to the home will allow for a successful study in relation to the high school to college transition.

 

Items to consider:

• The study of Suburban spaces
• The study of Urban spaces
• Single family homes
• High-rise apartment buildings
• Media influences
• Needs for privacy
• Self-Identity (Decorations)
• Roommates

 

 

The article by Clare Cooper, The house as a Symbol of the Self, is by far my favorite article we have read this semester. The article goes into a detailed description of the way that we as individuals see our houses as who we are. Cooper discusses how most Americans feel that a high-rise apartment isn’t truly a house because you’re not grounded in a single-family dwelling. The house becomes the protector of ones internal environment and helps to identify who we are as individuals. Although discussing a mobile home, Cooper writes about anyone that lives in a house that moves, probably feels as unstable as the structure they inhabit. I feel this can be related back to the concept of the high-rise apartment buildings saying that those that don’t own their own piece of earth may not feel as grounded as those that do.

In the article, Cooper also discussed different means of decorations and how we portray ourselves to others by how we decorate. She discusses the ways that decorations are placed around the home and how bedrooms are often times more decorated than shared living rooms. Also written in the article, is an explanation of the ways houses are designed in relating to entrance and focal points. Having a single family home or an apartment building are two totally different things making these very important spaces not as important.

I feel this article will give me a good start on my paper because it discusses the differences in building types and the way most people feel about them. Although not the same, the dorm and the high-rise apartment building are quite similar in a sense that you aren’t grounded and you share a lot of space. When moving out of the single family home, your privacy, freedom, and overall self-image must completely change. Although most of us don’t own our homes (our parents do) there is still a small sense of ownership I in our rooms, yards and known neighborhoods. The biggest change I will be looking at is students that are going from a quiet suburban home to an urban dorm room. Media hypes up college and portray an image of what we all think the ideal situations are. However, once we move in we realize it isn’t as perfect as we thought it would be. As Cooper discusses, privacy is impacted in the new situations as well as the freedom to decorate your own home. You now share a space and must respect your other roommates. You eventually learn to adapt to these environments but I am unsure if you are every completely happy until you move out and back to a location you feel completely comfortable in. For me, that’s a single-family house out in the country.