College Questions

[BicuriousBoy]

Hey, so my sister is moving into college tomorrow and it's starting to give me plenty of questions. Granted I'm a sophomore in High School now so I still have a little time.

1) What am I supposed to do about a roomate? I've never been the most comfortable with guys. My bowling team, some guys in band, and ones I've known for awhile sure, but strangers....ehh. I know meeting a stranger and becoming friends with them is easy, I've gone through work at an amusement park for two years. I mean my friend Erica found out her roomates before the summer and frequently had Skype dates with them and met them when she visited West Virginia (she's going to WVU). My sister is rooming with her best friend. I'd love to room with my best friend but he's like me, he doesn't know what he wants to do so it's unlikely that we'd choose the same college.

2) When would be the right time to tell him I'm bi? Coming out, for me, has always been a simple process ever since my first time coming out, but it was always to friends.

I know it just seems pointless since I still have three years until college, but it's been racking my head for the past week.

[Jared]

I would tell them before you move in so if it is a problem you can get a different roommate. It's easier, at least at UCLA, to switch roommates earlier in the year. If you are really uncomfortable rooming with a guy or just don't want a roommate some schools have single rooms. I had one last year and will again this year and it can be nice since it's easier to study and you don't have roommate problems, but they do make it easy to shut yourself in.

[Aria]

I'll give you a pro-tp because I got through 4 years of college with no roommate. I cannot guarantee it works with all schools, because some force roommates. This worked for me.

1. Be on top of when the dorm sign ups go up. The earlier you sign up for your room, the better chance you have of getting what you ask for. When you sign up for a dorm, usually it asks a little bit of questions about you like if you're messy, etc. My school asked if I would prefer a single or a roommate.

I always signed up day one and always got what I wanted. ( Having my own room also allowed me to leave my door open all the time and invite anyone I wanted in. My whole floor was like my mass of awesome roommates. )

2. On those surveys, make yourself seem like a slob. Say you snore. Not kidding. This was my other friend's strategy.

3. If you do get a roommate, play it like you would anyone else. Try to become friends. If you feel really uncomfortable, ask for a roommate switch. Happens all the time.

4. Chances are you won't be spending a lot of time in your dorm. I was only really in it when I had to sleep or if people wanted to hang out, watch TV, and hide their booze in my fridge since I was sleeping with the RA and din't get my fridge checked. (Kekeke. I do miss her.)

However, most of my college career was spent in the library, no lie.

[musikk021]

1) Regardless of who your roommate is, I highly highly doubt that you'll have a good experience living with someone else in the same room. It's not always a matter of compatibility; it's a matter of having to share your private space with another person (especially a stranger). If you plan on living in the dorms, then I guess you have no choice but to room with someone. If you can find an apartment off campus and have enough money to pay for a single occupancy room, I'd suggest that route instead.

In my experience, having roommates in college is the worst part of the college experience. At least for me, living with someone else in the same room is a nightmare. Other people are so unpredictable, and there's nothing you can do to control their behaviors. I had to live with people who snore like thunder, who smoke in my dorm room, who blast their music out loud, who bring their friends into my room when I'm trying to study, who are extremely messy, who smell horrendous, and whose living habits/schedules just conflict with mine. I had issues with severe anxiety during the last school year because of how pissed off my roommate made me. It was hell.

If you're the type of person who's okay with dealing with other people or if you're not too picky about living habits, then you might get by without getting driven crazy by your roommate. And when you sign up for dorms, the "roommate survey" they give you to pair you up with someone usually doesn't help or make a difference. And when you find out who you're rooming with and say you talk to him for a while before school starts, don't get your hopes up about him. I thought my roommate freshman year was going to be cool...I moved out after one semester. Talking to them as a friend and actually having to live with them and meet them in person are two separate things. So, not trying to scare you; just want to warn you about how roommates go.

2) There's really no need to tell your roommate your sexuality. Most of the time, they'll figure it out eventually if they get to know you enough. My gay guy friend's roommates were all cool with him being gay, and he never had to verbally tell them. I mean, my friend had a wall-size poster of Justin Bieber hanging up above his bed...if that doesn't indicate his being gay, I don't know what would haha. My friend also introduced his other gay friends to his roommates, so his roommates kind of figured it out based on who he hung around. It's simple things like that that can out you without you having to make a deal out of it.

[Chip]

I guess it varies for each person.

At Oberlin, about half or more of the dorms had open doubles (one large room shared by two people). And a lot of my friends because very close friends with roommates who were complete strangers at the beginning of the year. I'm not talking about "not being driven crazy"... but of becoming such great friends that, in many cases, they chose to room together for the next one or two years. (These being straight, same-sex friends.)

I would also strongly disagree with the idea of living off-campus your first year of school. I did that, mostly because I was an older student, living on my own, with a whole lot of stuff when I went to college. And the result was... it was much harder to develop good friendships. I voluntarily chose to live in a dorm my sophomore year, with a roommate who was a friend, and while there were a few annoying things about it, that's one of the college experiences I most cherish because so much interaction happens in the dorm lounges, hanging out in other people's rooms, and so forth.

There's actually some pretty solid data looking at social adjustment at college that indicates that students who have roommates and live in dorms together typically have much better social and psychological adjustment to college life than those who life off campus or live alone.

And... just because you have one bad roommate doesn't mean all roommates suck. From the people i've talked to, the residential life people who assign roommates at the colleges I'm familiar with are actually really good at what they do and seem to do a pretty amazing job of getting people with similar interests and personalities together.

Now... there are downsides, certainly. The room across from mine had two guys living in it who smoked a ton of weed and had very loud reggae playing close to 24 hours a day. The stench was bad enough when the door was closed, but when they opened the door, this enormous cloud of smoke (and the volume of the music) filled the entire hallway. It took persistent complaints to the house director, but they were eventually thrown out of the dorm after repeated warnings. But, for me at least, the problems were outweighed by all of the positives.