What to expect from having roommates ?

Next year i will be attending college and living on campus with roommates. However, i have always had a room to myself & have never lived with another guy because i only have sisters. What should i expect ?

Hmmm, these answers could be interesting, right @doschicos ? :wink:

Looking forward to reading the responses, but I am just here for the ride :slight_smile:

The first thing I would say is don’t expect them to be your best friends. They may end up being good friends, or they may end up being a roommate.

Expect that you should come up with a roommate agreement talking about what is expected…with respect to cleanliness, visitors, sharing of food, when you expect the room to be quiet, etc. etc.

Actually, I can contribute to this after all. Second what @bopper said. My D is definitely “just roommates” with hers. It will depend a lot on the type of college you go to, but there are colleges that let you pick your own rm, colleges that assign rm, colleges that randomly assign, and variations of all. My D’s college seems to primarily pair kids by sleep habits, then tidiness, or lack of, then by how sociable someone wants to be. Those factors might be really important to you so find out how the college works it out, once you put your deposit down.

It can be hard to adjust sometimes. For me, I didn’t realize how exhausting it would be to have someone constantly in the room. I like alone time so it’s kind of tough to come back after a long day aaaand there’s your roommate. But you can get yourself some space, if needed, by going to the lounge or library (or even outdoors!).

One thing that I thought was pretty neat about having a roommate was whenever I was feeling overwhelmed I would just look around the room and see that my roommates were also feeling the same about college and life in general. They don’t have to be your best friends, but they’re definitely not strangers to what you are feeling about dorm life and college.