Everyone who has filled out a University Housing application was faced with questions about his or her sleeping schedule, noise level, friends and social life, age, approach to cleanliness, music preference. Perhaps some more categories to add: Your habits with borrowing things, boyfriends, nudity? As with most University Housing arrangements, the idea is that people with similar answers would make good roommates. However, college is a time to explore one’s identity, meet new types of people, maybe develop new habits and break old ones.
Some may argue that putting two outgoing, messy people in one room and two shy, neat people in another doesn’t allow them to see other people’s lifestyles.
Sophomore human physiology major Lina Lim, who lived in Hamilton her freshman year, said that her differences with her roommate were a good thing. “If I found someone too similar then we would be stuck in our own worlds,” she said. According to Lim, she was “dubbed anti-social” because she would always study in her room, but her roommate was more “assertive.”
“She wasn’t afraid to tell people (to be quiet when) we were studying,” Lim said of her roommate. “We got a lot of problems worked out before they escalated to anything bad because she would tell me.”
Next year Lim plans on living with two friends in an apartment where she can see her other friends too. “We’re familiar with each other’s habits, whether good or bad, but we can chill and watch Wushu videos,” she said.
Freshman Peter Ward, living in Barnhart, has had a positive dorm experience with his current roommate, except for the “walking-around-naked thing.”
“When he gets out of the shower and he doesn’t have a towel on, I’ll say, ‘You’re naked again, aren’t you?’” Pagel recounts. “He’ll be like, ‘Yeah’ and I’ll tell him, ‘Go put some boxers on.’”
Ward’s future roommate, freshman Nathan Pagel, also living in Barnhart, said he and his roommate are very different, but he has dealt with their differences. He gets irritated when his roommate borrows things, such as his expensive jacket, without asking. He will make comments about it, but not use too much confrontation. Next year Pagel will live with Ward and another friend from his hall, people who are “also outgoing” and like sports.
“If you don’t like your roommate, you might want to change rooms,” Pagel recommends. “Or just talk it out.”
Junior chemistry major Tim Ngai who lived in the Hamilton complex his freshman year found living with his roommate a “very intellectually stimulating experience.” However, he said he wished that he “screwed around a little more.” For next year, he is still looking for a roommate, someone “clean and decent.” Though he won’t necessarily know if his future roommate will have these qualities, Ngai said that he will “hope and pray.”
Students should try living with someone new or unfamiliar, according to freshman Jenna Naef, who plans to move into a sorority next year, and lived with a childhood friend in Barnhart this year. While they got along, Naef said she liked to party, unlike her roommate. “When you’re living with someone constantly it puts a strain on your friendship,” Naef said. “I would advise to live with someone new, someone (you) don’t know already.”
After living in the dorms, freshman Greta Nelson regretted living in a special interest hall, such as the music hall. She lives in the Walton complex, where she said that she did not get “positive reinforcement” to make new friends. She said that with her purple hair and old clothes, she got “snobbish looks” from hallmates.
“I would’ve liked a residential FIG,” Greta said. “Then you get to bond with people of with similar interests.”
Next year Greta looks for someone she can be comfortable with. “I want to find someone who I wouldn’t mind walking in a towel around,” Greta said.
Greta’s older sister, Sarah Nelson, a fifth-year senior and history major, has a five-year-wealth of roommate experiences.
“I wish I worked harder to make friends in the dorms,” Sarah advised. “It’s a great place to practice living with people and making friends.”
According to Sarah, her roommate influenced her to become vegan in her freshman year. Unfortunately, when her roommate wanted her boyfriend to move in, their relationship began to deteriorate.
She was excited her sophomore year to move in with a friend from her marching band. “We loved purple, we decorated everything purple,” Sarah recalled. However, in winter term, everything changed when Sarah’s roommate got leukemia.
In another frustrating living situation, she learned to assert herself when her roommate left her four cats to care for. Sarah told her, “I’m not taking care of your cats – I’m not going to deal with this.”
Sarah advises to take extra consideration when moving in with a boyfriend or girlfriend: “Think really, really hard before moving-in with a significant other,” she said. In her junior year, she opted to move in with her then-boyfriend, “against my better judgment.” Soon after, she said she was paying his bills and found it difficult to kick him out.
Currently, she lives with her boyfriend, who she met while living in an apartment complex last year. Looking back on her five years, she said, “Every experience worked out and had their up and downs.” Now she stresses the need to “let things work themselves out.”
“We’re still 22, we need to chill out and let things be,” Sarah said of her current live-in boyfriend. “We’re still discovering how to be grown-up.”
Living with disaster
Daily Emerald
May 15, 2007
0
More to Discover