Share your experiences! I’ll have a roommate since I asked for a room change. She will be from Japan. Post any of your experiences in detail if you love or hate your roommate!
Look at it as an opportunity, however more complicated it might be. Just be careful: the Japanese are not known for their flexibility. Nonetheless, Japanese women who have the strength to leave the support structures of Japan are far more interesting than the men.
I’ve had two international roommates, both Chinese. They were both quiet, courteous, and overall easy to live with. Barely discernible from American roommates besides some cultural quirks (such as heating plain water before drinking it) and the obvious language barrier. However, international students tend to only hang out with the other students from their country, especially while they’re underclassmen. Your roommate may not want to be very social with you.
I’m glad I had the experience. I learned quite a bit about the culture of their respective regions and even some Mandarin.
Not really during college, but I have had a roommate from Slovakia during a two week summer camp. I also have had many friends that have had international roommates. I agree that they tend to hang out with their own group alot (I mean, think about it, it’s nerve wracking moving to a new country with new languages, so they naturally seek out people similar to them) however invite him/her to events with you and hang out with their friends once in a while, it can be a fascinating experience!
My roommate is from Southeast Asia. Like @Alexmer said there are cultural quirks. Some of those have even rubbed off on me. I agree with everyone that said international students tend to hang out with their own group. At my college there are people who are best friends with their roommate(s) and there are people who barely speak to theirs. Since I’m close with mine, we share a lot of the same friends. She’s really cool and I didn’t expect us to be this close when I found out we were from different countries. I’m glad I was wrong.
I am a parent, but I had a coworker this fall whose son is a freshman at a state university. He signed up for an international roommate. Unfortunately, the roommate was diagnosed with TB during the first few weeks of the semester. The ordeal that followed involved almost another month of her son getting moved into a different room, getting tested for TB and prophylactic treatment and it was very stressful for him and disruptive for studying. Make sure you check on what the immunization and health testing policies are with your school and what the recourse is in case it does not work out with the roommate, in the event of a health issue or just plain cultural disharmony. This was not the first case of active TB in an international student for this school, yet they had very little reassurance that They knew how to handle the situation.