Rooming with a friend?

Student Lounge College Life
1

Hi everyone!

My friend and I are planning on dorming together next year when we go to college. We have been friends since kindergarten (not really best friends (just because we don’t hang out all that much), but good friends- I have always gotten along with her really well). We have very similar personalities and interests. She will be going into veterinary science and I will be going into mechanical engineering.

We have found many benefits to rooming together (here are just some)

  1. We can both go back home at the same time
  2. We know each other well, so there wouldn’t be much adjustment
  3. Collaborating on room decor etc. would be made a lot easier
  4. Even if we end up hating each other, the same could happen with a random roommate anyway
  5. We can hang out and meet people together
  6. She has a boyfriend going to the same college and says that she won’t be in the room a lot of time (which gives me designated alone time)

I haven’t thought of any negatives yet, so that’s why I’m asking here.

The only thing we have to talk about (for now) is where we are going to live and what style bathrooms to get.

The living situation might be tough because I may have 8 am classes in the Engineering dorms building, and I’d have to walk across campus rather than just rolling out of my bed to go. However, I’m not sure if my friend would be willing to live in those dorms either because they’re far from HER classes. Simultaneously, I don’t even know if I want to live in the Engineering dorms because I’ve heard there generally isn’t too much going on in them.

The university offers suite style bathrooms and community style. Suite style are nice, because you can put your things in there and keep them there. They are also MUCH more private. However, you have to clean your own bathrooms. With community, the staff cleans them for you. But, they aren’t private, they’re co-ed, you can’t just keep your things in there, and if you have to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, you have to leave your room.

I was hoping for suite-style, but at the same time, cleaning a bathroom that 4 people use (two rooms of two people) may be a pain. On the other hand, it’s nice that community-style bathrooms are cleaned for you, but not having a set place for toiletries and the co-ed thing might be a huge downfall (I’ve heard some stories…). With the walking thing, our college allows us to pick our dorms down to the room number, so we could look at the building map and choose a room right by the bathroom so we don’t have to walk all that far.

If someone could give me some insight on the roommate, dorm, and/or bathroom situations, that would be great. What should or can I do about each? Thanks!

2

The big thing with the friend is how compatible your lifestyles. A big difference can drive a wedge between you. You’ve had years to vet her, but college can change people- and not always for the better.

3

As much " fun" it might be to room with a good friend, it might be better if you don’t.

Rooming with someone else gives you the opportunity to meet other people, pick the dorm style/location that you want. Not rooming with your friend gives you the option of visiting/meeting up with her. That way you are not relying on just her to do stuff with.

Having an immediate friend on campus is a bonus. I feel it’s better to not jeopardize the friendship by rooming together.

4

A couple of minor things can sometimes make living with a roommate quite hellish:

  1. One of you is a morning person and the other is a night owl. Or if 1 of you has a lot of early morning classes. To counteract this, discuss with your roommate how you'll handle this sort of thing.
  2. Pro to having a community-style bathroom down the hall: If 1 of you is a light sleeper, the other roommate does all of the bathroom stuff out of the room. This is especially helpful if the suite-style rooms have a sink in the bedroom. For somebody who's a light sleeper (aka, wakes up easily), sometimes even the noise of the sink running is really irritating.
  3. Your friend has a BF who's also going to be at the same college. It's a pretty big assumption at this point that your roommate will spend most of her time in the BF's room when they want "alone time." ;-) Look at it this way - the BF's roommate is going to get irritated if he's the one kicked out of his bedroom all the time that your roommate & her BF want to have sex. There will be some bedroom activities occurring in your room as well. Discuss it with your roommate ahead of time. And even if you don't have a BF at the moment, just be mindful of treating others as you'd want to be treated....because there might be a time later in the school year when you have a BF and she doesn't.
  4. Whoever is the light sleeper should get some ear plugs and plan on using them.
  5. Just because you are good friends doesn't mean that you'll be compatible roommates.
  6. Re: your 1st choice dorm - if you are going to be roommates w/your high school friend & given the location of your classes vs her classes, pick a dorm together that is, preferably, half way between your classes and hers.
  7. Discuss the dorm pros & cons (i.e., suite bathroom vs community bathroom down the hall) w/your roommate. 1 big pro of community bathroom is it makes it REALLY EASY to make friends with people. Seriously. And using a community bathroom is not as big a deal as it seems. Just use a shower caddy to carry your toiletries w/you to the bathroom, wear a robe & shower shoes/flip flops, and you'll be just fine. Re: suite-style bathroom - having more privacy is really nice. BUT you'll have to work out a bathroom cleaning schedule with all of the suite's roommates....and you should expect that there will be disagreements between the 4 of you re: who's turn it is to clean the toilet & shower. And what is dirty to 1 person counts as "just fine" to another person. Plus, look at other posts here on CC. There are so many posts from students complaining about how their suite roommate keeps using their shampoo, conditioner, hair products, etc. You're not going to have enough room to store bathroom products for 4 women in 1 of those small bathrooms.
5

Agree with the above. What matters isn’t necessarily your friendship, it’s your living styles. I have close friends who I wouldn’t live with for a million bucks. Sit down and have a talk about your sleeping habits, cleaning habits, preferred study spaces, and especially your smoking/drinking.

The number one thing in a roommate relationship is open lines of communication. You need to be able to mention something if it’s bothering you, rather than letting it fester. This extends from something a simple as “please turn your desk light away from me; it’s shining in my eyes” to “you haven’t emptied the trash in three weeks and it’s an insect hazard” to “you’ve sexiled me for three days running and I need equal access to this room”.

I’m biased, having never lived in a suite-style dorm, but from my experience there is nothing to recommend a hall bathroom. Nada. Zilch. They suck. If you live far away form the bathroom you have to treck down there, if you live close you have the delightful bathroom noise to listen to. Sure, someone else cleans it, but that means people are more willing to leave filth and be gross, since they don’t have to clean it up, and they’re usually not cleaned on weekends, so if you have a partier or two on your floor there will be nastiness all weekend. Additionally, at peak times you might not even be able to get in for a shower. That’s way less likely when only 4 people share the room; everyone will probably be on slightly different schedules. Buy some simple green and a toilet brush and bring some rags, maybe glass cleaner, cleaning a bathroom is not that hard. Have a suite meeting and propose it be one person’s job every week to clean it (with the caveat that if you make a mess beyond the normal detritus of living you clean it up) and then each of you only have duty once a month.