Advantages and Disadvantages of Living in a Hostel:
Hostel life has its advantages and disadvantages. The first advantage of living in a hostel is that one is away from the noise and bustle of the city. Attractions of city life are a great hindrance in the way of a student. Studies require a calm and quiet atmosphere and this is best afforded by a hostel. Crowded cinema houses, noisy traffic, processions, accidents quarrels and squabbles are things of daily occurrence in a city. They waste much of the time of the students and distract their attention from their studies. It is, therefore, desired their students should live in a hostel among their fellows. The quiet atmosphere of the hostel is congenial for studies.
Students do not learn so much from their teachers as they do from one another. In the hostel, students get an opportunity of mixing with their fellows very intimately. They learn a good many things from one another. They form social habits. They learn manners and rules of good conduct. They live together like a family and learn to be helpful to one another. Thus hostel life gives them training in citizenship.
At home needs of students are fulfilled by their parents. Students get into the habit of depending on others. They cannot do anything independently. But in the hostel, students form themselves into committees and manage their affairs. They themselves settle their disputes, control the mess, arrange programmes of games and recreation and learn to live under discipline. They receive guidance but there is no undue pressure on them. Thus they form the habits of self-reliance and self-discipline which may prove very useful to them when they go out into the wide world and take their places as men and women.
In the present time, many evils have crept into the hostel life so there are some disadvantages as well. In the first place, hostels are not situated in ideal surroundings. They are in thickly populated parts of the city and as such students are not free from the evil effects of city life.
Also due to slack discipline, some evil students import bad habits into the hostel as smoking, gambling and cardplaying. These have a bad effect on all the boarders and in place of learning habits of simplicity, truthfulness and self-control, they fall prey to bad behaviour and misconduct. Hostel life is a great blessing only if it is under proper supervision, otherwise, it leads the youth astray.
