... FROM THIS SEMESTER, WITH THE AUTHOR'S NAME AND GRADE REDACTED. PLEASE NOTE THE STRUCTURE AND SOURCING AND MY COMMENTS ON WHAT WAS GOOD AND WHAT COULD BE BETTER.
October 7, 2016
False Deadlines
Every
fall, just as the dust has settled from students moving in, Michigan State
University students get caught up in a mad dash to secure housing for the
following year.
Despite
what many students believe, official deadlines do not exist for landlords
having students sign leases for the following year.
The current MSU off-campus housing trend has students
rushing to sign leases in the beginning of October for the following fall.
“During my freshman year, I thought that we had to sign
up in early October to have any kind of housing. Once we missed that date, we
kind of panicked and ended up signing on to live in Chandler Crossing,” ACTUALLY, IT’S CHANDLER CROSSINGS, BUT
SINCE THAT’S WHAT THE PERSON SAID IT IS NOT A FATAL FACT ERROR MSU junior
Glen Camfield said.
Early lease signings create a number of different
problems. First of all, many things can change in the almost year between when
you sign your lease and when you move in.
“The earlier it is, the more risk you take when you’re
talking about living with someone. You sign on to move in with someone in 11
months and then you live with them for 12 months, so you’re talking about a two
year relationship with someone you just met,” CRMC WHICH IS WHAT? president Jeff Wells said.
Many students,
especially freshman and sophomores who live in the dorms, will feel uncomfortable
asking people they just met if they want to live together the following year. It
is a big commitment to ask someone whom you have known for about a month if
they want to live with you the following year.
“I lived in the dorms last year and really liked my
roommate and suitemate, who I went in blind with, but when everyone started
signing their leases I didn’t feel like I knew them well enough to commit to
living with them for the following year, so we went our separate ways,” MSU sophomore
Grant Gallas said.
When leasing time rolls around, students often sign with
people who they are familiar with, such as friends from their hometown. HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS? WHAT IS THE
ATTRIBUTION?
This makes it difficult to maintain friendships from your
first year of college, not to mention possibly creating long HYPHEN HERE lasting new relationships. HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS? WHAT IS THE
ATTRIBUTION?
On the contrary, many students living in the dorms
believe they will enjoy living with someone who they are friends with now. By
the time the end of the year rolls around, their friendship has diminished, yet
they are committed to living together the following year. HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS? WHAT IS THE ATTRIBUTION?
“There were these two kids who lived on my floor freshman
year and they seemed super chill. They signed on to live with a couple of our
other buddies from the floor. By the end of freshman year, the four of them
barely talked anymore and yet they were committed to living together the next
fall,” MSU junior James Alcock said.
Both of the above scenarios have one common factor: Signing
leases too early creates a number of different challenges.
Annette
Irwin, the housing and university relations administrator for the city
of East Lansing, GOOD
NEUTRAL EXPERT HERE had one clear message about off-campus lease signings. COLON INSTEAD OF PERIOD HERE Wait!
“The perception is that you
have to do it now, but the reality is there is still a fair amount of students
who do it at the beginning of the second semester,” Irwin said.
The rush to sign keeps getting moved up every year,
despite the fact that even if students delay signing until the start of the
school year, inventory still exist, Irwin said.
“We have more apartments
than we’ve ever had, and next year we will have even more,” Irwin said.
With that being said, there
will always be certain living situations that will need more planning due to
circumstances such as a strict budget, preferred living location, and the
number of people you plan on living with.
“As a person looking for a
place to live, there are some things that are going to be harder and there’s no
way around that,” Irwin said.
There have been discussions of creating a law that would
set a date for when students sign pre-leases, but it is complicated, Irwin
said.
For example, the university is located in the city of East
Lansing, but many of the off- campus housing options are not.
If a law were passed, it would only affect the city of
East Lansing, and many off-campus housing options are outside of East Lansing’s
jurisdiction, Irwin said.
Landlords also don’t like the current trend of
pre-leasing be pushed up every year, Wells said.
“We would rather have it delayed, and we are going to
take affirmative steps this off-season to push back the timing of pre-leasing
for the following school year,” Wells said.
Contact List
·
Grant Gallas: Sophomore at Michigan State
o Phone:
586-719-1188
·
Glen Camfield: Junior at Michigan State
o Phone:
734-649-5428
·
James Alcock: Junior at Michigan State
o Phone:
734-276-9401
·
Jeff Wells: President of CRMC
o 517-256-7111
o Email:
jwells@wbag1.com
·
Annette Irwin: Housing and University Relations
Administrator
o 517-319-6801
o Email: airwin@cityofeastlansing.com
ASSIGNMENT
GRADE: (REDACTED)
INSTRUCTOR
COMMENTS: VERY STRONG FIRST EFFORT. GOOD RANGE OF SOURCES FROM PEOPLE WHO DRIVE
THE ISSUES (LANDLORDS) TO PEOPLE AFFECTED BY THE ISSUE (STUDENTS) TO PEOPLE WHO
ARE NOT DIRETCLY INVOLVED BUT EXPERT ON THE ISSUE (CITY OFFICIALS). GOOD USE OF
STORY STRUCTURE WE WORKED ON WITH OUR PRACTICE STORIES. WE DO NEED ATTRIBUTION
FOR THE MIDDLE SECTION NOTD ABOVE; IF THOSE OBSERVATIONS ARE FROM STUENTS YOU
TALKED TO, THEN JUST ADD, SOME STUDENTS SAID. BUT THE AUDIENCE NEEDS TO KNOW
HOW YOU KNOW THAT, TO ESTABLISH THAT THE INFO COMES FROM CREDIBLE SOURCES AND
NOYT JUST OFF THE TOP OF YOUR HEAD. A BIG DIFFERENCE ETWEEN ENGLISH COMPOSITION
AND JOURNALISM IS FOR THE FORMER, WE WRITE TO EXPRESS OURSELVES. IN THE LATTER,
WE WRITE TO EXPRESS WHAT WE FOUND FROM OTHERS. STILL, NICE WORK!
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