So my roommate and I don’t really talk to each other in the room, just a short “hi” and “bye” when we enter and leave. Normally, this would be fine with me if it’s not for the problem that she’s also an EXTREMELY light sleeper and goes to bed at 11pm/12am. As a computer science major I do a lot of work on my PC and apparently even the sound of my keyboard can keep her awake. Since I’m a night owl, I tend to stay up extremely late and I can tell she’s starting to get annoyed by it.
I have a friend in the same dorm who is very much a late sleeper like me, and she also has a roommate who goes to sleep early. I feel like it would work out for the best if my roommate switches rooms with my friend, but I’m also not sure how to bring this up without offending her. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
She might be relieved at the idea. I’d say that you have noticed that your schedules are kind of out of synch, and you have been thinking about how to make it better. And that maybe a room swap if allowed by housing and agreed to by all parties is something to explore. Gonna admit… My sympathies lie with your roommate on this. Has your friend brought it up with her roommate? All parties would need to agree, and you would have to get the okay from housing. Be generous in helping the movers move there stuff if it happens, too, to try to keep everything on a pleasant footing.
Have you considered doing your late night studying outside of your dorm room? It is not as if your roomie turns out the lights at 9 pm. Are there any study rooms in your dorm, or a common room that clears out by midnight?
Learning to live with others is a series of compromises. You hope that both individuals will compromise to show their flexibility and to keep peace in the relationship.
There are more possible solutions than just having people move to change roommates. And who knows, the person who is not a light sleeper that you think you want as a roomie could have other, more annoying habits.
Most of my work is done on a desktop, so I can’t move it outside to study.I think my friend still hasn’t talked to her roommate about it yet either. My uni has a designated week where people can fill out an application for room switches so I was planning to do that.
Me and my roommates study hours are completely different and it use to drive me crazy. I’m an engineer and he’s majoring in some journalist degree or whatever and is in a fraternity so he comes home drunk at 4 am in the morning. However, it is mid-semester.
I’ve simply resigned myself to either studying at the library or in my dorm’s lobby. If I were you, I’d wait until next semester to switch because its just going to make things complicated and typically RDs are difficult to deal with in my experience. Next semester, try to room with someone you know you get along with and sign a roommate agreement if you have one about study hours which I should’ve done.