Roommate What?!

Looking into going to college? Looking into a college that is far away from home? Well one option a new college student has for living arrangements is residence. For those of you that aren’t completely sure what residence is, it is kind of like a mix between a hotel and an apartment.

In this blog I’m hopefully going to inform –or amuse– people with the happy tales and horror stories of learning to live with a roommate. Believe me when I say this, it really is not nearly as easy as it sounds, do not fear though, it is do-able.

To start, there are three types of roommates: the roommates that are best friends, the roommates that tolerate each other, and the roommates that hate each other with a passion. Keep in mind though it doesn’t matter what type you are, a lot understanding and compromise will take you a long way.

Everyone would agree that the best roommates are best friends, and this is very true because normally two girls or two boys that are friends before the college experience already know what makes the other tick and that helps them get along well. Keep in mind though that living with friends is still not as easy as it sounds. Some friends that choose to live together through college learn about habits that the other has, the problem is that this habit will become a huge annoyance. On the other hand some roommates get stuck together by chance and become fast friends who make the choice to live together for more than one year. This is great because living with someone that you get along great with will make even the time you spend in your room enjoyable. Like two boys that live down the hall like to play pranks on each other.

However another type that can be considered just as good as the friends type, or even worse, depends on your perspective. This is what my roommate and I are; we are the type that simply tolerates each other. This doesn’t mean that we are friends but we get along to an extent that we can carry out a short conversation within the walls of our room. The only problem I really see with only tolerating each other is that you might not tolerate each other in every situation. My roommate and I are partial opposites in terms of our personalities, this is when it should be kept in mind that party girls and quiet girls don’t tend to have the most in common. Especially when the quiet girl gets woken up early in the morning cause the party girl has locked herself out of the room, see how different habits can actually cause problems?

Finally, I honestly hope that this never happens to anyone that they end up with a roommate that they can’t stand to be around. Fighting roommates causes problems not only for the people directly involved but for residence staff who then have to decide what to do about it. Usually this gets solved by separating the roommates; however this can take some time depending on the room availability. Keep in mind though that there is almost always a fee for switching rooms.

Even though I see how well other people get along with their roommates or even how badly if that’s how it turns out, living with another person gives you good skills for the future because let’s be honest here, who wants to live in res for more than one year and the average college student cannot afford to pay rent by themselves. I really hope you can see where this is going. Roommates are just another part of the college experience.