NIU

Security and feeling safe

Posted by Stacy on Friday, March 20, 2009 9:31 AM

As a college student (and girl) I have been taught by numerous people including my dad, teachers, family members and even friends, the dangers of walking alone at night or not locking your doors. I think campus safety has been beat into my mind and I always have my eyes open when I am out on the weekends or even walking to my car in the parking garage from the library during the week.

But I have always pretty much felt safe in our house. We live kind of off campus (I live with 3 other girls in my sorority) and it is more in the actual neighborhood so we don't really get pranks or drunk people randomly which is nice. But a few months ago we did have a break in and it scared the crap out of us and definitely our parents. That's when we decided to have a home security system installed.

Although it was kind of expensive it was definitely worth it. My roommate had nightmares and wasn't able to sleep for weeks after it happened and we are all out of state and at least 5 hours away from our parents and they felt that it was definitely worth the money to get alarm systems put in and even two home security cameras. There were so many different security system options that the people gave us when they came to look at our house and situation but since we were only going to be there for about 7 more months at the time that this happened we got a minimal package. It works perfectly for us because it is just enough security to scare away people and to keep us safe and keep us feeling like we are safe (two completely different things really) but it also isn't too much where we would have problems with alarms going off all of the time or anything really high tech and expensive.

Sometimes it can be a pain and it is weird when people see that we have one because we live in a college town by a school so people think we are kind of snooty and stuck up, but it definitely makes us feel much better and I know that I can go to sleep at night and not have to worry which also makes our parents feel much better too.