<p>This'll be my first time sharing a room with anyone, and I'm pretty nervous. I barely know anything about my roomie, who is a varsity volleyball player, and I was wondering if you guys had any tips for dealing with someone very different than you, or just tips in general?</p>
<p>Try to communicate as much as possible with them. That way, you both know what gets on each others nerves.</p>
<p>That whole communication thing is hard to do, my roommate is an turkish international student.. :S</p>
<p>I'd talk about things like music or sports or something like that. usually you have something in common somewhere along the line.</p>
<p>I'm just curious...how protective of your stuff should you be with your roomate? I mean I am going to be bringing expensive stuff into the dorm room (iPod, laptop, money, etc.)...</p>
<p>most colleges understand your concern, and they will talk about getting along with roomates in orientation and when the RA talks with the floor. There are several books about college life that will also discuss this.</p>
<p>Don't wait to bring up problems in hopes they will "go away". More likely they will continue. That's one reason "roomate contracts" have become prevalent; it gets you discussing things up front and agreeing on behavior. Take, for example, having a SO spend the nite. If you've never talked about it and then get invited to spend the nite somewhere else while the SO is standing right there, thats not a good time for a discussion :-) And if you don't do it, the roomate will figure you're ok with it and you can expect it to happen again.</p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind is that you don't have to be best friends with your roomate. Its just an assigned living situation. Sometimes people are disappointed their roomate doesn't want to spend more time with them, turns down invitations, etc. Don't take it personally. Sure, roomies CAN turn out to be great friends, but its not a prerequisite for a good year. What is essential is respect for the other person. If you both have that, things will work out fine.</p>
<p>
tmak: gross. turks are really violent from my experience.
</p>
<p>THat's pretty racist, dude. I was just talking about a communication barrier. Oh well, we all jump to conclusions about nationalites. I'll just see how things things go.</p>
<p>As a person who met quite a few Turks, I would also say that is a racist generalization (I'm not sure on what it is based) which has no place on such a forum.</p>
<p>Tmak- in my experience, the biggest thing I can say is don't sweat the small stuff, but speak up on the big stuff.</p>
<p>Your roommate never refills the brita? get over it.
Your roommate has wild kinky sex with different people everynight so you can't go to sleep? talk to someone.</p>
<p>yeah well bogororo i've met quite a few (how about 50+) and all of them were that way. but thats just my experience, maybe most turks are not like that.</p>
<p>Ever been to Istanbul, namaste?
You would not believe how far people would go in helping me just because I was a foreigner, when they could easily steal stuff from me.
I know lots of Turkish youngsters and most of them are quite nice people, with the usual exceptions, of course.
Now try this, what if I said that Americans are ignorant and stupid?
What if you said Romanians are all thieves and beggars? (that's the current stereotype about my nation).
We would all feel offended and rightly so. No one likes nasty hasty generalizations about his kind.</p>
<p>i heard that all turkish people steal your wives and sell them for babaganoush, but its just what i heard</p>
<p>what's babaganoush?</p>
<p>a hummus-type thing made from eggplant</p>
<p>silly rabibt, a lot of americans are ignorant and stupid.</p>
<p>A lot of people, irregardless of nationality are ignorant and stupid, anyway. But you wouldn't like to be called that, would you?
And I would rather have "silly bunny" as a label.</p>
<p>Talk about problems BEFORE they occur. Within the first few days discuss how to handle late nights of homework and friends, cleaning the room, "visitation" of the opposite (or same) sex, drugs and alcohol... all that stuff. Sometimes your college will give you a little worksheet to help you out that you have to sign and return to your RA...but if not, do it on your own!!</p>
<p>Talk about lots of generalizations in this thread.</p>
<p>Establish some ground rules in the first week. Like, whether it's ok to borrow stuff from each other, what happens if one of you brings someone to the room, etc.</p>