No matter how much our culture or technology change over time, one enduring fact of life is that hobbies are fulfilling. There’s just something about working on a particular skill or interest that makes leisure time seem more productive. While living in off campus housing near UF, the freetime you have outside of school work is ideal for doing a hobby. While choosing a hobby, though, you’ll want to consider options that work for an apartment and fit your budget.
During your search for hobbies to do in off campus student apartments, consider factors relevant to your situation, including whether the hobby works for the environment you live in and what costs are associated with the hobby. It’s also helpful to consider hobbies are already popular among residents who live in apartments.
Since most UF student apartments are equipped with full kitchens, cooking is a logical hobby with many benefits. For one thing, you’ll save money by cooking because raw ingredients for recipes are less expensive than pre-made food items. Exploring new recipes will also lead you to discover more types of ingredients, which turns shopping for those ingredients at grocery stores or farmers’ markets an adventure all its own. Cooking has health benefits, as well, because homemade food is often more nutritious than take-out.
For all its conveniences, including affordable rents and locations near the university, off campus student housing can also present interesting decorating challenges. But in the right hands, arranging furniture or choosing accent pieces for an apartment can become a fun hobby. You may enjoy the puzzle of deciding where to place tables and chairs so as to complement the layout of a room. While the job of putting up mirrors, plants, or artwork to create a certain feeling in a space takes creativity, not to mention the adventure of shopping for decorations. Meanwhile, students on a budget have found that rearranging the existing items in their apartments is an inexpensive way to achieve a similar result as redecorating.
The variety of art projects you can accomplish in an apartment is astounding. When you have the budget for materials, consider using a canvas and either oil or acrylic paints to create a scenic portrait. A more inexpensive project can be repurposing miscellaneous items, such as wire, bottle caps, and cardboard, into a sculpture. Quilting and knitting are other low-cost forms of art that enable you to make pieces that you can display or wear in the apartment. There is also a whole world of digital arts to be explored right from your home laptop.
When your next creative impulse comes, take out notebook and pen, or open a word processor on your computer, and try writing. As a hobby, writing presents numerous ways to go: you could write journal entries about experiences you’ve had at your apartment or on campus; invent a fantasy story; explain an event from history; or even write letters, cards, or emails to send to family and friends with whom you’ve fallen out of touch.
Musical instruments make great hobbies because they have infinite possibilities for improvement and creativity, but living in a shared environment means keeping noise levels at an acceptable level out of respect for roommates and neighbors. So, certain musical instruments are too loud for an apartment, while other instruments are suitable for students in shared housing. One option of a relatively quiet instrument is an acoustic guitar. On the other hand, certain digital instruments, such as an electric piano and drum machine, can be played using headphones.