Roommate Question

<p>So I saw on Stanford's website that you do not find out the identity of your roommate until you move-in. According to them, this eliminates any prejudices or misconceptions you may perceive from a superficial chat on facebook (I'm paraphrasing here, of course :)). </p>

<p>This question is aimed at current Stanford students: How do you feel about this policy? Do you wish that you knew your roommate beforehand, to prepare yourself? Is arriving on campus with two tvs that big of a deal? Or do you like the surprise?</p>

<p>I don’t know if I count, since I won’t be a freshman for a month or so. That said, I kinda like it. All my friends who have FBed thier roomates are already judging/worrying about them. I’m obviously not doing that. I’m not sure how much I can prepare myself anyway. It will be neat to meet someone without knowing who they are or what to like. Just like they did in the good old days.</p>

<p>Haha I guess that’s true. We’re so used to living in a time where it’s the easiest thing in the world to find and meet new people online, that we forget that colleges did stuff like this in the past without any major issues. It’s not like people were dying because they had no idea who their roomate was (well, maybe some people died lol). I never really thought about the fact that it beings us back to a time where we met people face to face, and hoped for the best. </p>

<p>Plus, if you can believe the website, you are matched based on some commonality, so it’s not completely random.</p>

<p>I don’t wish I had found out my roommate before hand. You’d inevitably have some preconceived notion of them without ever meeting them. It’s just one of the many things Stanford does differently than other colleges. I didn’t encounter any problems with just meeting my roommate the first day, aside from the initial inevitable awkwardness. But nso is just a whole weird, exciting bundle of awkwardness so it’s just another thing. If you can avoid it, I would definitely hold off buying/bringing any big ticket item (ex: tv - who has time to watch tv anyway…) until you meet your roommate though. You will be sharing a small space and it is only fair to discuss it with him/her.</p>

<p>That being said, the roommate people do an amazing job setting people up; the pairings are really good. I wouldn’t worry. I was never really best friends with my freshman year roommate, but we lived together in a cordial and respectful manner. It was totally fine. Just be open minded, fairly flexible and respectful.</p>

<p>Yeah in the vast majority of cases, roommate pairings seem to work out. </p>

<p>Besides the minor inconvenience of not coordinating TVs and the like (you’ll have a week to figure that out once you arrive before classes start), it is also bad if you would like to switch roommates beforehand. Like if you found out beforehand that your roommate would probably clash with your style, than you could enter for a new roommate. But I guess at Stanford if things are really bad they’ll be taken care of. </p>

<p>Also it makes for a really nervous move-in day.</p>