A huge part of college is rooming with a total stranger! Are you scared? Excited? Anxious? It’s totally fine if you’re overwhelmed with emotions when it comes to your living situation in college.
Before coming to campus, in the early days of July, you will likely receive the name of the individual that you will be living with for your freshman year. You should totally reach out to them! You can email them using the email provided on SIS or do a little stalking and find them on social media. By doing this, you can get a sense of who you are living with before you get to campus.
A typical conversation starter is like the image above. You can start by introducing yourself and then ask questions to get to know more about each other. If you have joined different Class of 2026 groups on social media, you guys have likely posted about yourself and seen each other’s posts – it happened to my roommate and I!
You will both be sharing a living space, so you can also talk about items that you’d want to co-buy or co-share in the room.
When you get to campus, you will get the opportunity to talk more about how you are going to share your space. Talking about room rules can be an uncomfortable conversation and you may be scared to approach your roommate to start the conversation but it is necessary to learn each other’s boundaries as you are both living in the same room. When having this conversation, it is important to be respectful of each other’s thoughts and if you disagree with what your roommate is putting forward, you can politely share how you are feeling. Remember, you have to spend 10 months with this individual so it is important that you guys both communicate and be respectful to each other.
If you are not comfortable to start the conversation, there will be a “roommate agreement” form that will be sent out for you and your roommate to review with each other. This form provides a great opportunity to talk to each other about expectations and other room related issues.
Some questions asked on the form are:
- Are you comfortable having guests in the room?
- What in the room is considered to be for communal/shared use?
- On a scale of “I don’t mind” to “I seriously mind”, how neat do you prefer your room to be on a daily basis?
- Can your roommate work in the room with the lights on, while you are sleeping?
- What is your preferred bedtime?
Do not arrive with the expectation of being besties with your roommate. While in some cases, you do end up being really good friends with your roommate, most of the time, it is a very casual relationship and that is okay!
It is very rare that you are paired with someone you will not get along with but if you do encounter some issues, the school provides some resources to resolve any issues that may arise. These individuals are there to help you with whatever issue you have with your roommate or other individuals in your hall.
These resources includes:
- JCs/ACs
- International Student Counselor or Megan Carmes
- Assistant Director of residence life
Teamwork makes the dreamwork! Always remember that with communication and compromise, everything will work out for the best.