Jordan Kersey
Mat Wenzel
ENC 2135
27 July 2019
The Republic Tallahassee
The topic that I chose to look at for my research paper is student living and how stressors in an average college students’ life effects their choice of residency. My friends and I have been looking at numerous apartment complexes located near Florida State University so that when the time comes, we will be able to sign a lease and all live in the same community together. When Mat told our class that we were going to be doing a paper on a community we were interested in joining during our time at Florida State, the idea of researching apartment complexes came directly to me. Every person will need to look for a place to live at one point or another in their life, so by researching these communities it wouldn’t solely be benefitting myself and my friends, but the entire FSU community. At first, I wasn’t sure what approach I should take to this topic since many complexes wouldn’t be open to sharing the flaws of their area since they only want people to see the virtuous. After talking to Mat, he helped me broaden my topic so that I would not run into these issues with the companies. By looking at my topic from a bigger perspective, I decided to research different environmental factors and typical college stressors that all impact where a student decides to live.
I have already interviewed the general manager at the Republic Tallahassee location, along with a student employee, and a student resident who already lives inside the community. After our interview was over, I was able to get different perspectives of what it is like to live here, and how involved the community is. I was also able to ask some of the members about why they chose this complex over other ones they looked at and how their diet, social life, and financial abilities correspondingly played a role in this selection. Through my research, I found many sources that pointed out these specific stressors and how they impact a typical college students’ life. I also found multiple sources on privatization, that showed how multiple colleges are revolving to private foundations and corporations financing, construction, and management needs which also has a huge impact on ideal living spaces. The text that I plan on analyzing is the interview I conducted between the manger, employee, and resident because this is the best way to share all the information I have gathered. I also want to go in depth on the tour I took at the complex and how it might affect someone’s decision, while also including the overall look of their social media platform, more specifically Instagram.
After reviewing the apartment complex known as The Republic Tallahassee, pros and cons could be seen with what this place has to offer. When a future resident first turns into the complex, the office comes into view on their right side with a gym and resort-style pool also in view. The actual apartments are then located behind a gate, which requires a special four-digit code to get in or a gate clicker to gain access to these living spaces. There are many parking spots available outside the leasing office, so if a prospect or resident has questions, wants to take a tour, or if they need any other service, there is always a spot available to park your vehicle. As soon as one walks into the office, they are greeted with a warm and welcoming smile from multiple employees that are stationed at the front desk. “Hi welcome to the Republic, is there anything I can help you with?” the employee states if they do not recognize the person as an already existing part of the community. The staff are always ready to give a tour to make the stranger feel at home in this unfamiliar territory. The tour starts in the front office where they keep the conversations organic and flowing as they show the client around the clubhouse presenting multiple amenities included just within this clubhouse. As the group makes their way past the front desk, the bathrooms are then on the left and there are multiple tables set up for studying, hanging out, or resident events that are held quite often. There are also many TVs set up with pool and ping pong tables as a great way to interact with other residents. As the employee makes his way towards the door, he explains how this environment is solely for college students and that each apartment is known as a cottage because they are freestanding with at least two floors to tailor to each students’ individual needs. Each cottage contains anywhere from 2 to 5 rooms, each floorplan having unique characteristics that make it stand out from the competitors. As the tour continues, the resort-style pool immediately grabs all newcomer’s attention. In this area there is a grilling station, spin room, hammocks, cabanas, and a beach style entrance into the water. Behind the pool, there are newly renovated sand volleyball and basketball courts, which a lot of pickup games take place at. The tour then goes directly to the model home, which is located down a sidewalk from the back exit of the pool. The walk to the home shows the community and all the decorated balconies lining the streets. When walking up to the door, the staff member shows the key fob used to gain access into the cottage, gym, pool, and leasing office. Once inside the model home, it becomes evident that these cottages are well worth the price paid because of the vast amount of space and storage included. Each room comes with a dresser, bed frame, bathroom, side table, desk and walk-in closet. The living room contains a sofa and a chair, along with a coffee table and TV stand. The kitchen and living room have open floorplans, with newly installed granite countertops and endless cabinet space. Two bar stools are also included for the provided counter space to entertain guests while cooking. Within this floor plan, the 4 bed 4 bath courtyard, the entire upstairs is carpeted, with an exception to the tile floors in each bathroom. The laundry room is also located in a spacious area on the upper level with a washer, dryer, and internet router shut behind a closed door. The other 3 rooms are located on this second level, each room with a unique theme that all correlate adventure and community. Overall the tour was very interactive, with a photo booth to put a picture of yourself on your future wall, a pen to add to the summer bucket list, and multiple games to be played all throughout the model home. On the way back, the guide took us on the opposite side of the pool which carried us past the mailboxes, where we learned the process of sending and receiving packages while living here. Upon the end of our tour, the employee made sure we were comfortable and offered us various amounts of refreshments and asked if any other questions that they did not answer were brought up.
When looking for a place to live, many people seem to lean towards cost efficient areas that have good management and are maintained nicely. However, multiple stressors that are in an average college student’s life can also create a big impact on where they end up staying for the year. One of the main qualities looked at is safety. In the study “Environmental characteristics Associated with Residential Burglaries of Student Apartment Complexes” by Matthew Robinson, it states “The environmental factors of primary importance have been identified as location and types of doors and windows, utilization of locks, burglar alarms, fences, walls…” (Robinson, 662). Overall this study showed how if you keep up with security in the city of Tallahassee and are cautious of your surroundings, then you should not have to worry too much about having your apartment broken in to. During my interview with Katherine Rodriguez, manager of the Republic apartment complex, she assured me that “we put our residents first. All units come installed with an alarm system and we have security guards on call on a 24/7 basis” (Rodriguez, 2019). I also spoke to an employee just below Katherine and she stated, “I have been living here for just under two years and no major incident has ever happened to me or any of my other friends that live here as well” (Bautista, 2019). Bautista also added in comments on how much she loves the gate system and how “it makes everyone feel safer as a whole knowing that random strangers cannot come and go as they please” (Bautista, 2019). Another social factor that stands out is the obvious concerns on how much it cost monthly to live in this complex and how it compares to other living areas. After reviewing the study done by Ronald Sages, “research shows a clear relationship between economic distress and reduced mental health status” (Sages, 2013). When a student is having financial problems, it can cause them to turn to unhealthy coping habits. In turn, if a college student is failing to provide for themselves, they can end up in an unsuitable environment which can lead to unstable mental health and an extra amount of anxiety being placed in their head. When this anxiety is present, it can lead to a dramatic downfall of grades and social life which can open a lifetime of failure for someone who is just starting their life. “At Tallahassee [Community College], a required “college success class” includes information on budgeting” (Lacey, 2013). With classes like these available in a college town, it can help students learn how to properly mange their money, reducing the amount of anxiety present from economic complications. One major downfall to many apartment complexes is the use of privatization. Privatization is defined as the transfer from public or government control or ownership to private enterprise (dictonary.com?). Because of outsourcing and privatization, “obvious implications for the provisioning of housing to the low- and middle-income residents of these municipalities, who may not be able to match students' combined spending power…has potentially important implications for the students themselves” (Laidley, 2013). The private companies in charge of these complexes know that the demand for off campus housing is high, so they run the prices up. This causes a major issue for students who fail to meet certain financial needs and can once again cause them to settle for a place they are unhappy with. When talking to Katherine, she told me that the Republic has the same issue every other complex has in Tallahassee. “We are owned by the company Scion and they decide the prices and what goes on behind closed doors” (Rodriguez, 2019). Sion is a multimillion-dollar company that bought the republic and owns and operates over 81 companies across 27 states (cite from phone). Since this company is so vast and powerful, they are able to control these complexes and do basically anything they want to them. Not only can this hurt future residents, but it can also make the managers take the heat for when things go wrong in the company and leave individual complexes with bad reputations. Finally, the last stressor I took a look at was how student’s diets impacted their living situation. This may seem out of the ordinary since you typically do not correlate eating habits with apartment complexes, however, when certain locations are closer to healthier stores and not as close to fast food joints it can make an impact. After looking at a study titled “Dietary Patterns and Home Food Availability during Emerging Adulthood: Do They Differ by Living Situation?” it concluded that “Interventions aimed at increasing neighborhood access to healthy foods, as well as other approaches, are needed” (Laska, 2010). In a typical college town, fast food restaurants are everywhere you look, every turn you make there is a McDonalds, Chick-Fil-A, Taco Bell, etc. Generally, this impacts the students’ diet and can cause many health concerns which can result in time off from school, not thinking straight and many other issues. When speaking to one of the residents at the Republic, Kyle Law, he casually stated “I eat out way more than I should, sometimes 5 or 6 days a week” (Law, 2019). When I asked him why he feels the need to go out so much he said “it is just so much easier to be able to go through a drive through and to not have to worry about cooking a meal, cleaning the kitchen, and the endless amount of dishes that come with each meal” (Law, 2019). I also made a point to see if people in this area know about healthier options they can buy food from. When I asked, he responded “I mean I go to Publix and occasionally Walmart, nothing out of the ordinary” (Law, 2019). When mentioning the same question to Katherine and Isabella they both named a grocery store named Lucky’s that they occasionally go to for fresh fruits and vegetables along with prepared meals that you can just stick into the oven (Rodriguez and Bautista, 2019). It is not that the options aren’t available, there are multiple grocery stores located on or near campus, including a brand new Green wise Publix located in College town.
The Republic’s website and Instagram pages tends to be the most operative way of learning about this complex and what they have to offer. The Instagram page has been up and running since August 19th, 2016 and includes a multitude of different things such as community event, deals on if you sign, if they are hiring, and community news. They also have several contests where if you follow the account and tag a certain number of friends you can be put in raffles to win gift cards, scooters, and even trips to theme parks in Florida. The page is tailored to residents and employees and the theme of it gives a sense of belonging which is great for potential clients who want to be involved in an active community. Also, located almost every day on campus are marketing employees that give out fliers with special deals if you sign at certain times along with free snacks and drinks. This is a great place to be, especially during Summer C, because a majority of the students are freshman who will soon be looking for places to live in the upcoming years. Isabella is one of the marketing employees and in the interview, she told me that she actually “enjoy[s] going out and marketing. It is so fun being able to talk to people and getting to know their interest and what they want in a potential living space” (Bautista, 2019). When a person takes a snack or drink, they are also asked to send a direct message to the Republic’s Instagram page that says “thanks for the snack” so that they will see the page and hopefully remember the name and maybe even look back at it at a later time.
Another marketing tool that makes the place stand out is the tour that the employees take clients on. As explained earlier, this tour is a very collaborative and effective at showing everything the community has to offer. It also shows how involved and polite each of the workers are and how much they love not only working there, but also being involved in such a collaborative environment.
In conclusion, there are several factors that are involved in picking out an apartment complex for students to call home. Being on your own for the first time can be very worrying and stressors like safety, finances, privatization, and diet choices does not make the process any easier. However, after analyzing all the sources and determining the drive behind each, it is very manageable to learn how to avoid these complications and to find a perfect fit for each student. Although I only specifically looked at the Republic, there are several other complexes in the city of Tallahassee that could be a suitable fit to accommodate to one’s specific needs.
Works Cited
Rodriguez, Katherine. Personal Interview. 24 July 2019.
Bautista, Isabella. Personal Interview. 24 July 2019.
“Privatization.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/privatization.
The Scion Group, thesciongroup.com/.
Law, Kyle. Personal Interview. 24 July 2019.
Annotated Bibliography
Bekurs, Gray. “Outsourcing Student Housing in American Community Colleges: Problems and Prospects.” Taylor & Francis, 16 Aug. 2007, naspa.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10668920701428402?scroll=top&needAccess=true#.XTsTO25FzZs.
This source goes into depth on how many colleges are turning to private foundations and corporations for their financing, construction, and management needs. This study is essential to include in my research paper because it shows how college campuses are turning to corporations to provide student housing which changes the orientation from public to private. This will help build the strength of my paper by allowing negative aspects of apartment complexes located in the Tallahassee area to come in to play. This source is similar to many others I have found since it is an academic journal that shows a study on information. This website appears to have little to know bias since it is a study done on the history of privatization and a look into the future of this strategy. The author of this study is credible because he is the director of commercial real estate and focuses on the development and management of university property.
“Features.” The Republic at Tallahassee, republic-tallahassee.com/features/.
This source shows what is included in the community known as “The Republic”. There are multiple tabs that are enabled when you select them including floorplans, location, features, gallery, and apply. This study is essential to include in my research paper because it shows the specific community and how they present themselves, along with showing multiple amenities that make this a golden place to live. This will help build the strength of my paper by allowing my information about the complex to be completely up-to-date and accurate. This source is different from all the others I have included since it is not an academic journal. I will not be taking direct quotes from it since it is not a piece of writing, but I will be looking at how this website corresponds to the living area. This website appears to have bias since it is essentially another form of communication to get information out to their clients. The company would not put negative aspects of the community on the website, so I will have to try to locate a source that shows both respectable and depraved qualities of this zone.
Lacey, Kylie. “Two-Year Students Face More Money Stress.” University Business, vol. 16, no. 7, July 2013, p. 18. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=95757527&site=ehost-live.
This source analyzes issue of financial stress related to community college student in the U.S. and discusses the findings of the report "Inceptia National Financial Aptitude Analysis" on the issue, which states that two-year students face more money stress as compare to four-year students. This study is crucial to include in the research paper since it is directly related back to the Tallahassee Community College (TCC). This will help build my paper since I am relating stress factors and living styles and including the apartment complex The Republic, which is located just a few miles off of TCC’s campus. This source is similar to the study “The Correlations between Anxiety and Money Management” because they both look at the financial impacts of these stressors. This article is open to bias since it is a discussion of the bad money allocations of each specific student. This source provides a graphic comic that shows the percentages of community college students and financial stress in a more vivid way than the other articles I have reviewed.
Laska, Melissa Nelson, et al. “Dietary Patterns and Home Food Availability during Emerging Adulthood: Do They Differ by Living Situation?” Public Health Nutrition, vol. 13, no. 2, Feb. 2010, pp. 222–228. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1017/S1368980009990760.
This source provides a study and information comparing dietary behaviors and home food environments by young adults' living situation. The study evaluated the difference between living with parents, renting an apartment/house or living on a college campus. The study relates to my research by providing another stressor that is common in an average college students life. This article does not seem to be biased and has been peer reviewed so the information does have multiple opinions. This source is different from the others I have found because it provides insight to multiple different living situations instead of solely focusing on one. The study was conducted properly and yielded results that were clear. The author is credible because she has a PhD and is a professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health. Her expertise is in equity, food and nutrition, public health nutrition, obesity prevention, food environment, food access, healthy food retail, nutrition policy, and food security.
Page, Randy M., and Michelle O’Hegarty. “Type of Student Residence as a Factor in College Students’ Alcohol Consumption and Social Normative Perceptions Regarding Alcohol Use.” Journal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse, vol. 15, no. 3, Mar. 2006, pp. 15–31. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1300/J029v15n03_02.
This source analyzes the type of student residence as a factor in college students’ alcohol consumption and social normative perceptions regarding alcohol use. While this source may seem out of place, this study showed that specific living areas had a tremendous impact on the frequency of heavy episodic drinking. Many people do not think of the impacts this has on a college students social and academic life. This article differs from the others by directly related living situations to alcohol while the others are factors like residential burglaries. This article is open to bias since it is a discussion of heavy drinking which can vary depending on the age and sex of the students being looked at. Of the authors, one author is a professor in the Department of Health Science at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The other author is a behavioral scientist with a PhD in the Office of Smoking and Health, Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. This makes both credible because of their high level of education in each field regarding this study. This source stuck out when it mentioned “Similar to other studies, this study found consistently greater risk for heavy drinking and alcohol-related problems among members of fraternities and sororities than among other students”. This correlated directly to the hypothesis the researcher made in the introduction of the study.
Robinson, Matthew B., and Christine E. Robinson. “Environmental Characteristics Associated with Residential Burglaries of Student Apartment Complexes.” Environment & Behavior, vol. 29, no. 5, Sept. 1997, p. 657. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/0013916597295004.
This study provides a different approach on environmental characteristics associated with residential burglaries of student living apartment complexes at two universities and one local community college in Tallahassee. In this study, Florida State University, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), and Tallahassee Community College are the schools getting looked at. This article will be used in this paper to explain how certain environments serve as inhibitors to criminal activity and how this impacts the business and safety of the student living communities in this city. Like the other sources I have found, this study shows how environmental factors impact a student’s potential living area. This article seems to have little bias and the evidence provided is well researched and performed. The author is credible to discuss the topic because he is a doctoral candidate and teaching assistant at the Florida State University School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. The associates are also working on their master’s degree at the Florida State University School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and the work has been peer reviewed, making this article a credible source for evidence.
SAGES, RONALD A., et al. “The Correlation between Anxiety and Money Management.” College Student Journal, vol. 47, no. 1, Mar. 2013, pp. 1–11. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=92757378&site=ehost-live.
This article shows the correlation between anxiety and money management. The results from this study indicate that anxiety has a significant effect on financial behaviors. This article will be used in this paper to elaborate on stressors involved in a typical college students’ life and how it impacts them to spend their money. This is a key source to put in my paper because it shows how some people must settle for cheaper housing because they cannot afford to keep up with the rent at higher end complexes. Overall, this could lead to living in an unsafe environment which can also result in additional stress. This study is similar to the other sources by showing environmental factors that contribute to a living space, but it takes the financial perspective instead of social factors. This article seems to have little bias and the evidence provided is well researched and performed. The author is credible to discuss the topic because he has a PhD in Family Studies and Human Services with emphasis in personal financial planning research and interests in behavioral finance, financial numeracy/literacy and risk management. One weakness of this study is that results were based on a sample that may not be fully representative of the broader United States population, which is a limitation involved.