Roommates
Back when I went to college, I was allowed to choose one thing about my freshman year housing: whether or not my room would be air-conditioned. The rest of the options (which part of campus, which dorm, who would be my roommate and so on) was decided by a committee or person or computer (most likely bet).
Sometime over that summer before heading off to school, I learned my dorm was the farthest away from most classrooms (but closest to where the Tar Heels played basketball – go figure) and that my roommate was a girl with a strange name from rural Missouri. When I arrived on campus, I discovered my roommate lived a mere few hours away from the part of Missouri where I grew up, that she was of Thai descent and that she was as shy as they get (she spent her first semester leaving campus every weekend to spend with her aunt, despite my often invites to stick around).
But, that second semester? That’s where our friendship was born. We shared many late nights laughing into the wee hours. Weekends spent hanging out with our in-state suite mates. Vacations keeping in touch with one another as if we’d been friends for a lifetime. And you know what? We have been friends for a lifetime. Though, she now lives on the west coast, a far cry from my Midwestern home, we keep up via Facebook. I cannot imagine what my first year would’ve been like if she hadn’t randomly been assigned as my roommate.
I also cannot imagine whom I would’ve chosen for my roommate had I been afforded that opportunity. One thing is pretty much for certain: it likely would not have been who I was matched with. And not for lack of a great roommate. But, on paper, we probably looked like two very different people and I would’ve deemed someone else a better fit for me.
So, it was with dismay that I learned of a growing number of universities that allow students-to-be to choose their perfect roommate. Through websites like match.com, only they’re for incoming freshmen, students fill out surveys and comb through results looking for a roommate. The article I read says students answer questions regarding study habits, overnight guests, tidiness, politics, sexual orientation and religion, among other things. And then, they are matched up with other like-minded kids.
The horror! Being matched up with someone just like you? Just so you think you can avoid being matched up with someone … not like you? What happened to teaching kids how to cope with adversity? What happened to learning from others who are not like ourselves? What happened to the whole self-discovery process, that might only be encouraged by being matched up with someone different from you? What happened to expanding our horizons and growing from new experiences?
Sure, some of that stuff might still take place, even with a preferred roommate situation. But, I can’t help to think that some of it will surely be taken away. Will disappear.
This is not the first article I’ve read that alludes to the fact universities have had growing issues with helicopter parenting (I can’t find a link for the other article, but it discussed issues when parents demand information about their 18-year old children and insist on interjecting themselves to resolve issues related to their children … and schools not giving out that info and not dealing with the parents at all, since those kids are considered adults). In the past few years, housing officers have been besieged by complaints from students and parents who looked up assigned roomates on the Internet and did not like what they saw, whether it was goth makeup or beer cans in the background. It’s parents (and kids) who expect perfect, ideal circumstances for their children. The thing is, life isn’t perfect. And at some point, kids have to learn how to cope and problem solve and, you know, LIVE LIFE on their own without mommy and daddy coming to the rescue.
Sure, there are going to be instances when roommate matches really don’t work (my roommate is doing lines of coke off my bed and waving a handgun in my face – wtf?!), but I think many of the reasons why kids want to switch roommates is to take the easy way out, not because they need to protect themselves. Because they’ve never been taught to stick with something that’s tough. Because they have learned that if they whine a little, they’ll get their way. *shudder* It just seems to me that schools that allow freshmen to pick their roommates are missing the bigger picture and missing an opportunity to encourage their students to embrace diversity, learn from differences and add some self-discovery along the way.
What was your first college roommate experience like? Do you think you came out of that situation a better person or do you think there’s some merit to these roommate-matching services?
August 25th, 2010 at 6:05 am
I’m with you. What happened to fate? My freshman year was not ideal when it came to roommates. Purdue was overcrowded and they put a wall up at the end of the hall blocking off the last four rooms, added 2 more beds and called it a suite. It was up to the 10 “adults” to figure out their living arrangements. My immediate roommate left after 4 weeks. Then I was in a room with 2 others and my style was really cramped, then I settled in with one other and that worked fine. My grades were not good that year. (Part of that was from it snowing for 28 days straight). I think the bigger problem with students going to college and living in a dorm now is that they are from smaller families and bigger houses and have had their own bedroom their whole life and now they have to share. Wonder what it will be like for “grasshopper’s” generation?
August 25th, 2010 at 6:22 am
I am all for random roommate assignments- like you, my freshman roommate and I likely wouldn’t have chosen each other, but ended up being great friends. But I hadn’t considered how different it must be now that you can get your roommate’s name and immediately trot over to facebook to look them up. That would be very strange. I remember the anticipation of wanting to know what this girl was like, when all I had was a name and a hometown on a piece of paper. That anticipation was a good thing, I think- if I’d had months to cyberstalk her and get to know “everything” about her that way, it might have been tougher to go in with an open mind.
August 25th, 2010 at 7:00 am
My 1st year roommate at UVA was horrible (back in the day of ye olde 1990). Had I come into my own personality a little sooner than it did at school, I would have told her off. The benefit of her horridness is that I spent most of my time outside of my room, and made some great friends in my dorm (hanging out in THEIR rooms, of course). The universe kicked me in the butt…when my new roomies and I moved into our on-campus apartment for 2nd year, my freshman roomie was now my next door neighbor. Random? More like Murphy’s Law. I hate that guy.
August 25th, 2010 at 7:20 am
There was an option to request your roommate (if you were going to the same college as your friend or whatever) at my first college or you could get random. I did answer a survey that asked me questions about whether I preferred a quiet environment or not but that was it.
Anyways, I got three random roommates. One sucked, the other one two were great! The one that we didn’t like (a lot of factors played into this, she didn’t do her dishes, brought friends over at 4 am on the weeknights, let her pumpkin ROT on our table after halloween etc etc) moved out after the first semester and we got a new roommate. She was awesome! I lived with those same three girls my second year of college as well and it was great fun. I’m SO glad I did the dorm/roommate experience!
August 25th, 2010 at 7:50 am
I actually went all 4 years of college without a roommate. I was randomly matched up with a girl whom I had nothing in common with, but about a week before school started she called to say that she was withdrawing. The housing dept didn’t fill that spot so after a few days on campus I applied for a private room. The next three years, I was an RA and guaranteed my own room. I did have roommates when I did my internship in DC for a summer. Two of them were from OH and we got along beautifully. The other one, not so much.
August 25th, 2010 at 8:21 am
Not that I would have necessarily wished to have chosen my freshman year roommate, but the one that was chosen for me was awful. She was on the tennis team like me but smoked like a chimney. Therefore, our room always smelled like smoke, my clothes in our shared closet smelled like smoke and even when i would pick up the shared phone we had, it smelled like smoke. Disgusting.
She never washed her sheets. In fact, one night after her sorority got her really drunk (they made her funnel a lot of vodka) she puked all over herself and her bed. Despite the fact that I hated her guts, I made sure that she wasn’t going to die by choking on her own puke. Her sheets stayed on her bed (PUKE FILLED) for over a month. GROSS.
Not to mention she was doing a ton of coke and towards the end of second semester we had people calling the room looking for her because she owed them a lot of money. Awesome.
So yeah. Quite the interesting roommate experience. I definitely wish that I had someone else.
August 25th, 2010 at 8:55 am
I didn’t go away to college until I was 20 (started at community college), so I lived in an off campus apartment with a friend from high school. Horrible idea, ruined our friendship, and if I had to do it all over again, I would have lived in a dorm with someone selected for me. I hate that I missed out on that part of college, really.
One of my co-workers turned 39 this year and she and her college roommate are still best friends. The roommate lives in Michigan, but they still visit several times a year, go on trips together, and talk daily. I think they start their days out emailing one another first thing. Really beautiful friendships can come from those random pairings.
August 25th, 2010 at 8:56 am
Wow, I can’t believe they do that now! Sometimes people who are different from us bring out the best in us, and sometimes unknown great things. I can think of a lot of people in my life that is true of.
When I went to college (the second, transfer college) we filled out a questionnaire about some things like smoking, study habits etc. but we were still randomly matched. And I had a roommate who was not like me at all--we never would have even met if we hadn’t been roommates. But I think we taught each other new things and showed each other different sides of ourselves and we became really close friend. We even lived together after college for five years.
Some of the most important learning you do in college is outside the classroom. Picking roommates won’t prohibit that learning all together but I can see if being a definite barrier…
August 25th, 2010 at 9:41 am
I agree! (and was thinking this when I was reading a similar (the same?) article this week)
I didn’t get to pick my freshman roommate. We ended up being similar but different. We were friends, stayed in touch, and lived together off-campus in 2nd year. Now we don’t really keep in touch but even though we didn’t end up BFF’s I think it’s great that I didn’t end up picking a roommate. I mean how much can you know about someone from an online profile anyway? We worked out better than most roommates did.
August 25th, 2010 at 9:41 am
I agree, random roommate assignments are for the best. I saw a lot of terrible roommate relationships in college--and 90% of them were among sophomores, who picked their own roommates and often chose a friend, someone they liked but didn’t realize they weren’t at all suited to live with.
August 25th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Well, that might come as a shock, but in Germany college/university is REALLY different. You don’t stay in the dorms the first year, sharing a room with someone. (We do have dorms, but those are usually tiny studio apartments that you can rent (if a) you want to live close to campus) and b)can get a room, because there are usually less rooms than applicants). I don’t necessarily think that this is a bad thing or that we’re missing out on something. I think in many ways, European kids have similar experiences in other instances.
I really do see your point though.
When I came to the US and met J, he was a freshman in College and paired with a roommate that he had nothing in common with (and unfortunately, this story does not have a happy end, because there was no interest -- mostly on the other guy’s part -- to get to know each other or anything). J was happy when he could finally move out of the dorms. He hated sharing a room with someone. So I thought, “WTF? It is ridiculous that here you live in the dorms and are paired with someone that you don’t know at all beforehand”… but reading through your experience, I really know what you mean when you say that you think kids are missing out, if universities allow them to chose their roommates before starting college.
It might not always work out as wonderfully as in your case, but I think overall, there is an invaluable experience to be taken away from any dorm/roommate situation. Even in J’s case.
August 25th, 2010 at 10:25 am
I have never lived on campus, I’ve had a handful of roommates, but none who are particularly close. My roommate was always just my roommate, I made friends elsewhere.
xox
August 25th, 2010 at 11:03 am
I have to agree with you that I think randomly assigning at least the freshman year roommate (you can always choose to live with someone else 2nd year!) is the best option. You NEVER know who you’re going to meet and by choosing someone that your high school self thought was compatible, might not work for the person you’re going to become in college. You go through so many changes that first year that it’s safe to say that who you were when you started, and who you are when you finish, is going to be slightly, if not drastically, different.
That said, I have had a lot of horrible randomly matched roommate experiences. The first year at UNH I was placed with a girl named Sarah who brought home two guys the very first night, one of whom tried to get in bed with me. It was the start of a very long, tumultuous first semester. She ended up failing out of school and I had the room to myself for the rest of the year. My first year at MSU I was placed with a disaster of a girl named Marcy who never left her bed, never showered, was the messiest person I’ve ever met and was just plain old disgusting. I constantly waged war with her and a can of lysol and ended up in a single my next year.
My first roommate at FIT was fantastic but my second semester I got placed in a quad with three girls who didn’t get along with each other. I moved out and into my own apartment with roommates of my choosing after that and it has been great ever since. I definitely know what I want out of a roommate now but I didn’t know what I wanted out of a roommate when I was 18! I couldn’t have picked a “perfect” roommate then. You live and you learn, as they say.
August 25th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Well. My first college roommate was a complete nightmare which would take an entire blog post to explain. But, we separated and I moved in with a new roomie I NEVER would have chosen, but she was wonderful! She is black, I’m white. She was raised very differently than I was (she called her mom to tell her she needed to pay for her abortion because she hadn’t sent her the money for her birth control on time) but she was a great roommate. I learned a ton from her and it was awesome!
August 25th, 2010 at 11:21 am
I never have lived with a roommate, ever. I didn’t live away from home during college, which I somewhat regret, but I also couldn’t afford it. Although I had scholarships for the first year and a student loan, the government wouldn’t give me enough to attend school AND live in a dorm. So I had to live at home. I wasn’t home much anyway with schoolwork, projects, work, or going out with friends but I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I had had those experiences. I was never a party girl so if people woke me up at 2am drunk as hell then their life would have ended ;)
August 25th, 2010 at 11:28 am
My first college roommate was from my high school; we were best friends and we lived really well together. Until she started dating a pothead with a crazy ex wife who threatened her life, she stopped going to class and wound up flunking out of school. Which she decided to tell me after finals were over during the Christmas break. That second semester it only cost me $50 to have the room to myself, and that’s what I did. My room became the floor hangout though: movie nights, pizza evenings. It pretty much rocked. My dorm was small; 13 girls per floor and only three floors (no idea how I scored that since Mizzou was/is so huge) and we were super close. I still talk to three of the girls from that dorm, I was in one’s wedding and the other gal is getting married soon! I don’t think I would have changed it for the world in all honesty since I was really good at putting myself out there and meeting lots of new people (I rushed, I joined groups, I went to parties, mixers, etc).
August 25th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
I did not pick my roommate freshman year… We were like oil and water. I think a low moment was the night that I went to bed and locked the door -- for some reason, when she got home from going out, she thought that a locked door = Lisa is not home. So she started jumping up and down and celebrating the fact that I was not there. Um, that was awkward when she opened the door and saw me laying in bed.
It made for a sort of long freshman year in some ways, but I honestly don’t think I woudl go back and do it differently. I think it’s sort of a ‘right of passage’ to deal w/ a not so great roommate. It taught me to be more tolerant. It forced me to get outside of my suite and meet other people on the floor.
I am always a little bit disappointed when I hear that someone is going to room with a best friend when they are a freshman in college. I just think they are missing out on a vital college experience. So this whole ‘pick your perfect roommate’? Not on board w/ that at all.
August 25th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
I am not a supporter of this pick-your-roommate business. I would hate to live with someone just like me! It would drive me bonkers (I am enough for me to handle, thankyouverymuch). I never lived on campus or shared a room (I was a transfer student so I lived at home then moved off campus when I transferred to a 4 yr college since I was 21) but I think part of what helps us grow up is learning to navigate those close quarters relationships. I know my first roommate and I learned a lot in that condo off campus about negotiation, sharing, and respect.
August 25th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
My first college roommate was my high school best friend. It was fine, but rough. We both went through a lot of changes that first semester, and blows were had. Second semester eased in and we seemed to accept the new versions of one another well. We aren’t close now, but do keep in touch.
The next year I roomed blind. While she was nice, she was not my style and we don’t keep in touch.
So, I’ve had both experiences and I’m not sure how I feel about this whole matchey-match thing. While the introvert in me appreciated having my best friend to lean on those first few weeks, even with all of our fighting, I do get your point about experiencing and adjusting to new things. It would be nice if you could pick certain lifestyle choices — like non-smoker, non-drinker — but it’s a slippery slope to other, deeper issues.
August 25th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
I’m all for the random assignment. Because really? College/University is about growth and personality development along with education. And learning to get along with people who aren’t like you or people you don’t necessarily like? Part of the game of life. Not to be missed out on.
August 25th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
I had mixed results both with self-selected and admin-selected roommates in college. To my mind, there is no real good way to do it and in all honesty, the best option is to just make the room change process easier and not charge students for it should their rookie turn out to be a complete nightmare. It’s just too damn difficult the hoops you have to jump through and fees you sometimes have to pay to do it.
August 25th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
It’s tough for me to weigh in on this because I went to a junior college and then moved in with a friend from high school when I went away. I’m torn… It seems like it would be nice to be able to pick your roommate, but I totally see your point about that stunting students’ personal growth. I’d have to think about this all more.
I do, however, wholeheartedly agree with your point about parents staying out of it. Those kids -- who are getting shielded and sheltered -- are going to have a hell of a time when they get out in the working world. It’s a recipe for identity crisis later in life for sure.
August 25th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
I met my freshman roomie while working in a gift store at home in high school. We weren’t that close, but we both needed roomies so it worked out.
We lived together all 4 years of college, and we never had a disagreement. NEVER.
I know, unheard of.
Today, she’s one of my dearest, truest, best friends. Love her.
August 25th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Sadly, my first roomie and I had so little in common that we rarely even spoke. But a couple years later I moved in with a couple girls that I met through my ex boyfriend and WOW did we have a blast!
August 25th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
I got along pretty well with my randomly-assigned freshman year roommate. I’m really glad that I had the traditional roommate experience. I don’t think my freshman year would have been the same without it.
August 25th, 2010 at 9:49 pm
oh wow, this is crazy!
i agree with you, i enjoy the fact that i was matched up randomly. my freshman year roommate couldn’t have been more different than me but it worked out and created an experience for me that i’ll carry always.
August 26th, 2010 at 9:13 am
I can see both sides really. One one hand, I do agree it’s great to expand your horizons, after all, that’s what college is about. But if you get a bad roommate that affects your studies or just makes your college life miserable, well that would be no fun either. we had the option to pick our roommates which I did. She was my friend from home who had already been going to school for a year. She left after one quarter and I got assigned a roomie who was fine but moved out to live with her friend. After that they just assigned me a private which was great and then I lived off campus with friends soph-senior year.
anyway, my point is I think it’s OK. To each his own.
August 26th, 2010 at 11:35 am
I had the same reaction to a similar story on NPR.
August 27th, 2010 at 8:30 am
I didn’t have a roommate until I went to the States. We don’t really do that here, and it’s something I’ve never overly seen the need for. My room in the US was so big it easily could have been made into two, so why this desperate need for roommates?
Having said that my roommate was fine and we got along great in the beginning, as were the other four girls I shared a suite with, but we didn’t have much in common and as the year went on our habits changed and she stayed up later and it got a bit strained. Especially when she brought a boy back to the room and I had to vacate.
Basically I’d always prefer to have a room to myself, but if the option to choose my roommate had been there, I’d probably have given it a go. At least for basic stuff like if you’re an early riser or stay up v late. I think it’s good to meet people and sometimes it works out that you become great friends, but I’m not in touch with mine any more. I wouldn’t say it changed me in any way, by that point I was pretty much who I was going to be anyway, and I’d shared space with people in my first year, so it didn’t make much difference.
August 27th, 2010 at 9:50 am
On paper, my first roommate and I should have been a great match. We definitely weren’t. She was a little…nuts. She wanted a room to herself, and she did everything possible to make me miserable. She would do things like hide my loaf of bread in her closet, and then put it back out when it was moldy and complain that I let it get that way. She even went so far as to tell our RA that I had sex with my boyfriend, on her bunk, while she was watching TV. Nevermind that she had the top bunk…so she would have had to watch us get naked, climb up onto her bunk, and start going at it in order to make her story true. In the end, she got her single room…and I got one too. I had a roommate again sophomore year, but after that I lived in studio apartments until I moved in with Ted. He’s really the best roommate anyway.