Moving into residence can be pretty scary. You have no clue what or who to expect. Even if you are best friends with your roommate most people will end up hating them by the end of the year. If you are meeting your roommate for the first time on move-in day it can be even scarier.
Living with your best friend can be pretty awesome, and so can living with a complete stranger. However I can assure you both have challenges, and need to be worked through properly in order to be a successful year. Everything has a good side and a bad side. A study done by Michigan State University suggests that roommate conflict is one of the most common reasons for students to drop out of university. It is even more likely to cause a student to drop out than a death in the family, a significant injury or an addiction.Â
You are never alone. For those extroverts out there, this is a dream come true. You and your roommate get to eat together, do homework together, chat it up, talk about love interests and all that fun stuff. If you are sick there is someone to be there and check in on you, and if you go missing someone will notice.
But, you are NEVER alone! For the introverts of the world, you need your alone time. You might get tired of having someone hang around you every minute of every day and it can be overwhelming.
You live with a best friend.If your roommate is your best friend then you two have no problem telling each other how it is. You have double the clothing, double the snacks, and double the fun. It might as well be an episode of friends and that’s pretty awesome!
Or live with a worst enemy.Unfortunately not everyone gets along with their roommate, and that is totally okay. Even if you two started out as best friends, it can end up that you two don’t get along living together. This can easily happen, especially when you leave moldy fruit in the kitchen.
Two people to clean.Cleaning by yourself can be hard. It is always easy to do when you have someone else to motivate you. It also splits the work in half so you don’t have to clean the bathroom every single time. And when this is expanded to having four of five in a house, that’s even less work for you to do, cleaning the bathroom only once a month.
But, there are two people to make a mess.Double the people, double the mess. And if one of you is messier than the other it can be tiring to always be in a mess; if you aren’t into that type of dirty. And when this is expanded to having four or five in a house, the mess just keeps on getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
It isn’t that hard to make things work between you and your roommate. By following a few basic steps you can make sure you have a successful year and want to continue living together! Schedule, schedule, and schedule! NEVER assume your roommate wants to spend every second of every day together and don’t be afraid to let them know you need some alone time. By scheduling some time to spend together, some time to do your own thing and knowing that this is all agreed upon everything will run a lot smoother. Doing homework together an hour per night and leaving one night out of every week to make dinner together and watch a movie can be a great way to spend a healthy amount of time together, without getting caught up in each other’s hair.
Being patient, tolerant, courteous, and sympathetic are very important. You don’t have to love each other or be each other’s best friend, but not hating one another is sort of important. Be patient, be tolerant of cultural differences, courteous to sleep patterns, and sympathetic towards stress and other personal issues. If you can put up with them you don’t have to love them. Do your fair share. If you always make soup and spill it all over the stove top, wipe it up! If you have dishes, do them! Don’t expect your roommate to do half the cleaning if they are making a quarter of the mess. This will just build up tension. Also leaving your homework and clothes all over shared spaces will probably get them pretty mad at you, so keep it to the bedroom.
And they lived together happily forever.Â
Â
SourceMSU Study
Picture CreditsCover Picture, 1, 2, 3