Written by: Hans William
Edited By: Benigno Siswoko
While living in AP House is a very enjoyable experience, eventually everyone has to move out. For many first-year students, moving out of AP House is a daunting process. While the procedures may vary from case to case, generally moving out of AP House during the designated time is a simple, albeit time and energy-consuming process. However, if you want to move out before the designated time frame, the process becomes much more complicated. In this article, I Interviewed multiple people who are undergoing or have undergone the moving out process in order to identify and understand problems that may arise, as well as to document those problems to better inform people who might go through the same process in the future.
Students might want to move out for AP House for a multitude of reasons, the most common among those interviewed include:
1) Comparatively Expensive rent
2) Lack of individual facilities, such as a personal kitchen or shower
3) Bad internet connection
4) Restrictive rules
5) Small rooms
Peer Experiences
Though living in AP House in my experience is a pleasant and mostly hassle-free experience, some people in our current year may want to move out for reasons previously stated above or because of other factors, here are some of their stories.
One of the students moving out of AP House earlier than the set deadline is Spero Galaty, a first-year APM student from the United States and a resident of AP House 2. According to him, the process for moving out of AP House is needlessly complicated, with multiple surveys and an interview needed just to be permitted to move out. However, He admits that some parts of the process, such as questions about the student’s financial situation, living arrangements, and Japanese ability are necessary to ensure that students who want to move out of AP House are financially able to and are equipped with the necessary skills needed to live on their own. On the other hand, however, He argues that other parts of the process are completely unnecessary, such as knowledge of Japanese culture and laws.
He argues that Japanese culture and law are interconnected and mostly involve common sense as is the case in any other country, like the prohibition of underage drinking as well as not causing a nuisance to your neighbors by being loud. Besides that, most college students tend to live in clusters with other fellow students who they can count on to support each other. The interview which is the culmination of the moving out process was also mostly repetitive and redundant, in which he was asked questions already asked in the various moving out forms filled out prior to the interview.
Another Student moving out of AP House earlier is Brenden Lundeen, another APM first-year student, also from the United States. Now a former resident of AP House 3, He was already nearing the end of the moving out process when this interview took place. His experience with the moving out process was similar to my previous interviewee, Spero Galaty. He had a similar view towards the entire process, regarding it as unnecessarily complicated and convoluted, specifically highlighting the essays as the most tedious part of the whole process.
He also expressed his confusion over the fact that the moving out procedures differed in practice from the official guidelines found on APU’s website. Other than that, He said that the questions asked in the interview were wholly unintuitive as they were about his ability to do basic household chores such as laundry or cooking.[1]
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Senior experiences
In this section, I will lay out experiences of seniors who have already moved out of AP House. I believe that their experiences can be of invaluable help to our own moving out process. Here are some of their stories:
The first senior I interviewed was Camryn Jenkins, a second-year APS student originally from Kenya. He moved out in March this year, nearly 3 months after arriving in Japan.
Although He still had to deal with some of the moving out process, such as sending emails to the student office to request an interview and filling out the required forms, His experience with moving out of AP House was comparatively easy, as he moved out during the designated window after staying in AP House for 2 months.
Despite the easy process of requesting and scheduling to move out, the process of actually moving out of AP House was hard because of its slightly isolated location. Bringing all of your luggage and personal belongings is impossible by bus, so renting a car was necessary. Luckily, minishare exists as a convenient platform to rent a car from. By posting an ad for it on minishare, he was able to rent another student’s car for around 3000 ¥.
Besides the process of transporting your belongings from AP House to your new residence, you also need to do the time-consuming process of changing your official residential address at every bank, insurance, and cell phone provider you may have, as well as at city hall. Also, before moving out, a representative from AP House will check your room for damages you may have caused. It is always a good idea to keep your room in good shape and avoid unnecessary damages to your room, which may be deducted from your initial deposit. After all that is done, all that is left is to return your key to the AP House security office and you will be set to live your best life downtown.
Handling all these processes can be extremely tiring both physically and mentally, especially while juggling your academic responsibilities. Keep in mind that everyone’s moving out experience will be slightly different from one another. We hope that this article can become a useful resource when moving out of AP House.