I neither love nor hate Ikea. I swore off particle board after undergrad, and still found much of Ikea’s actual wood furniture worth the price. When you have to furnish your entire first apartment at once, time is less valuable than money, and some of their stuff is plenty good enough to last 5-10 years (it’s pretty easy to sort out the crap by eye in 5 seconds in the store). More importantly, it all matches, which is useful when you know you’ll be reconfiguring for a new place every couple of years for a while. Ikea is a cheap way to buy yourself a few years to be smart about shopping for good deals on good pieces you’ll want to keep.
Lastly - it is surprisingly hard to find furniture sized for apartment-sized rooms, at least in the U.S. Ikea has that. Most of what I find in other stores is 2-10 times more expensive, not much better quality, often uncomfortable, and designed for people 10-40 years older than me living in single family homes.
