Life 101: Should You Move On or Move Home?

BU Today asked a group of young alums how they made it through the obstacle course of everyday life — like working, budgeting, and dating — when they left BU behind and entered the real world. In this four-part series, we share their stories and tips.

Read Part One: "How I Survived My First Job — and Found My Amazing Second One," Part Two: "Money Matters -— Why I Cut Up My Credit Cards," and Part Three: "Making new friends, online and in the real world."

Katie Muldoon (COM’05) on why moving back home is sometimes the best thing you can do, and how to do it right:

When I graduated from BU, I knew I wanted to get into the music business, and I knew that to get there I would have to make some sacrifices. Looking back now, from the perspective of someone who is in Portland, Oregon, touring with the Decemberists, I can say that the sacrifices were worth it — but for a while, I had some doubts. The first and biggest thing I sacrificed was a place of my own. For a whole year after leaving Boston, I lived with my parents in New Jersey and commuted to internships in New York City. I didn’t want to be there, but financially, I had to do what I had to do. Living with my parents was a big hit to my pride.

During that year under my parents’ roof, I interned in the city for two music production and management companies. The first job was at a music public relations company, and after a few months I moved over to the management side of the industry. My parents were pretty good about it — always encouraging and understanding. The problem was mine: after years of college, where I was pretty independent, living someplace where I felt that I had to report to somebody was just kind of weird.

Also, as good as my parents were, we didn’t always get along. I had friends who were in similar situations, except, unlike me, they didn’t know what they wanted to do long-term. That, I learned from talking to them, will kill you. If you just watch TV and hang out, it gets really old, really fast — for you and your parents. I knew that I had to have a goal, and I had to have a plan to reach that goal. That’s the one thing that made living at home doable for a year.

Now, after interning with two different companies, I work for myself. I go on the road with bands and help with production, crew management, and merchandising. I love it. I don’t regret anything I had to do to get here — even living at home — because this has been my dream. I admit that if you had asked me that summer, on the train into Manhattan in the morning, how I felt about interning and living at home, I might have given you a different answer, but now that I’ve seen the end result, I’m cool with everything I did. It got me right here to this hotel room in Portland.

Lauren Pabst (CAS’05) on admitting that you are paying too much money to live in a really cool place:

I moved to New York City shortly after graduation because I got an internship at a documentary production company that was just outside the city. I was looking for a temporary sublet situation to last me through the internship, and I ended up subletting an apartment through Craigslist.

Subletting is very common in New York because there are a lot of students who leave town for just a few months. I think it can work, but to make it work you have to be careful — at least, you have to be more careful than I was.

I found an apartment that I shared with a girl who was interning for the United Nations, and we were subletting from a guy who was subletting from someone else. Everything was fine for the first three weeks, but then, in late June, we got an eviction notice. It turned out that the person who was on the original lease hadn’t paid rent since April, and no one knew how to contact him. The bottom line was, we had to find another apartment. In a week.

I went back to Craigslist and managed to find a new place, which ended up working out quite well — so well, in fact, that I met my boyfriend through my roommates. Today he and I live together in upper Manhattan. Our rent is totally ridiculous, and to be honest, it’s not worth it, not for our tiny 500-square-foot apartment. To make ends meet, we opened a small moving and furniture assembly business. We do small in-town moves and put together furniture that people buy from places such as Ikea and Crate and Barrel. I also work as a freelancer for documentary film companies in the city. The freelance work isn’t steady, but the moving business work is going well.

Will we stick it out in New York? I expect we’ll stay here for the next couple of years, but probably not long-term. I wanted the big-city experience, but now that I’ve had it, I’m fantasizing about a smaller-city experience, where a decent apartment is affordable and where you can see trees and feel like you are part of nature. I grew up in Milwaukee, and after living in Manhattan, I think the size of Milwaukee is just about right.