<p>USAToday article:</p>
<p>How</a> to survive your first college roommate - Science Fair - USATODAY.com</p>
<p>From the article:
The first week of the study, 32% reported always or almost always feeling lonely. By the 10th week, only 17% reported loneliness. Also during the first week, about 34% said they always or almost always avoided showing weakness to others. Only about 13% describe this behavior by the 10th week of the study.</p>
<p>These are good statistics to know for those of us who are worrying about our college freshmen. My son would also recommend the book,"The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College by Harlan Cohen. He received it as a graduation gift.</p>
<p>D absolutely gets the eco-system not ego-system concept! She's barely corresponded with us overall, but I woke up this AM to an e-mail from her that asked me to send a postcard or some mailbox filler to her roommate because she hasn't been getting any mail while D does fairly regularly (she and her HS friends have a snail mail pact.) It has already made my day that she's so thoughtful.</p>
<p>The key to my D successful relationship with her roommate (they signed up together for sophmore year despite the fact that they are not friends, just nice and civil to each other) is to focus on positives and ignore negatives realizing that negging cannot change a person who was brought up certain way by her parents. It also helps a lot that they are different major and on different schedule.</p>