College Invasion Today

Going to college can be lots of fun when you hang out with great people. Aside from classmates and random people you meet, you have to face it. You’re stuck with a roommate. Your roommates can be your best friends, but they could also turn out to be your worst enemies. What if you’re stuck with the roommate from hell? What are you to do?

One option to look at, is to notify immediately whoever can help. You can ask for a room switch from the housing office, but be sure to break it gently when your roommate asks why you’re moving. You can use excuses such as you were on a waiting list for a different room, or you’re moving in with a friend, or the rent somewhere else is cheaper. Just be courteous even if you don’t like who you are dealing with.

You can still choose to take the more challenging but more rewarding path: stay with your roommate and try to get along. Sometimes it can be hard in the beginning, but you and your roommate could end up being buddies, or at least be able to live with each other. Staying together as “roomies” doesn’t have to be hell, especially if you two end up being roommates for the rest of your college life.

The key to getting along with your roommate would be to respect each other’s privacy. Compromise reasonably, to make sure both (or everyone, if there are more than just two of you) will get a win-win share of the deal. Respect each other’s space, and each other’s weird habits. People have their own ways of dealing with things. What may not be routine for you might be quite normal for them, and vice versa.

If ever you have been the one behaving, and your roommate is the one crossing boundaries and violating your privacy, have a little casual talk. Don’t barge in, saying “get your clothes off my bed!” Be polite, and it’s easier to just segue it during normal conversation. Try saying, “Hey, we have to work out how we put our clothes in our hampers. By the way we have Bio class at 3 PM, did you study yet?” It lessens the pressure and tension that way.

Can’t sleep with the lights on? Invest on an eye mask or cover your eyes with a pillow. And of course, keep the noise level down even if you’re used to multimedia creating noise everywhere. Use earphones if you really need to listen to music or watch TV in order to study or fall asleep. Have a little respect for your roomies (and even neighbors) and they will most likely treat you the same way.

Tags: college dorm, getting along with your room mate, room mate

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 7:18 am and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.