<p>What are the pros and cons of having a room to yourself or sharing a room with someone else? And which do you guys prefer?</p>
<p>Here's what I have:</p>
<p>Living with roommate
-Automatic friend (not always though)
-Use his things (TV, laptop, etc)</p>
<p>Single room
-More space
-Don't have to worry about your things</p>
<p>For roommate:</p>
<p>Freshman learning to live with someone else. I’d imagine(no personal experience yet) that might be useful for living with a partner later on.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>hahahahaha…let me know how that works out for you. Sharing a TV, microwave, etc. are common, but sharing a laptop? I wouldn’t count on that being your only computer access. Maybe occasionally I’d use someone else’s computer or let someone use mine, but only if I was around and/or it was a last resort. Nobody I know regularly lets other use their computer–they’re expensive, private stuff is stored on there, something could happen to it, etc.</p>
<p>Roommates:
~Usually you’ll get an instant friend. I don’t talk to my roommates from last year, but we don’t hate each other. We just have nothing in common but managed to make living together work.
~Learn the fine art of Compromising!
~Somebody to talk to
~Sharing things–TV, microwave, some foods, sometimes clothes</p>
<p>Single:
~Privacy
~Can come and go as you please without having to worry about disturbing someone else
~Less concern about a roommate stealing stuff
~Can still be social and open to the rest of your floor, or can close the door and not be interrupted by anyone</p>
<p>Single:
Probably won’t need to find other places to sleep if your roomate has ‘people’ over some nights.</p>
<p>This seems like a bad way to decide to me- not all pros/cons have equal weight.</p>
<p>Do you want to be part of your school community? Or are you willing to exhange that for more privacy?
That seems like the bottom line to me…</p>
<p>Pro:</p>
<p>-Especially if he/she has different academic interests, then you’ve got some built-in academic help (especially on a quid pro quo basis)</p>
<p>My daughter is in a triple, and was telling us how they bring each other soup when one of them gets sick, so they don’t have to get out of bed. And when they get too sick for the student health center (why are student health centers so incredibly useless?) the will bring their roomates to the real medical center, and call their parents. </p>
<p>When all are well they have someone to go get meals or snacks when they are hungry. And even more important, someone to remind you to go get meals or snacks when you are in the midst of something or are thinking it’s too yucky outside to go anywhere.</p>
<p>Roommate:
-Pretty much an instant friend. If your school does one of those interest surveys, then you’ll most likely get someone you at least have a little bit in common with.
-Good experience in learning how to share space with someone else.
-If you feel homesick or are having trouble adjusting to college, it would be good to have someone else right there who can help you out.
-You can share things and you don’t have to bring everything. (You bring TV, he/she brings fridge, etc.)
-Someone to help you with problems, homework, etc.</p>
<p>Single
-Lots of space to yourself.
-You don’t have to use headphones when listening to music, no arguing over what to watch on TV.
-You can leave stuff out and not worry about it being stolen.
-You can stay up until whatever time you want or stay out as late as you want without worrying about bothering your roommate.
-You won’t have to adjust to living with someone else and sharing.</p>
<p>I guess in the longrun, it really doesn’t matter which you do. They both have about the same amount of pros and cons, so you’ll probably be happy either way. But if you’re not used to sharing space, and that really doesn’t seem appealing to you, then you might strongly consider a single room. On the flip side, if you think you might be homesick or have some trouble adjusting, then a roommate would be very valuable.</p>