The Bad Roommate

By Autumn Rosencrantz on April 8, 2012

One of the scariest things about going off to college for the first time, or even beginning another year of college, is the prospect of ending up with a randomly assigned roommate that you know absolutely nothing about. Horror stories about roommates have been around for as long as colleges have been assigning them, however it may not be as scary a process as people think it is.
Getting the roommate is the easy part.

The college randomly assigns people to live together based on vague criteria, like what hall a person would rather live in, or if they don’t want a roommate who is a smoker. So the first day of school usually involves a learning curve that incorporates moving in with a stranger and getting to know them.

Photo by Tulane Public Relations via Flickr.com

Luckily when a person is contacted about which hall they will live in the following year there is a small section dedicated to informing the person about the person they will be living with. The section usually will only include their name and college email address, but it is better than nothing. Use that information to try and find your future roommate on Facebook, or email them. Try to get to know your roommate so that moving in together will be less strained than it could be.

There is no denying that even after these steps have been completed and you have gotten to know your future roommate a little you might still end up with a bad roommate. Some people are just not meant to live together. There is nothing wrong with being friends with someone you could never live with.

The more popular bad roommate types are the overly amorous, the loudmouth, the dirty, the smelly and the one who never leaves. Those are just a few of the types of bad roommates people could end up with. I personally have had a couple overly amorous roommates, their partners were over all the time and they were never very quiet about it. One would even do so when I was in the room doing homework. Friends have also talked about other roommates they have had in the past who were equally as bad if not worse. The thing is most of the roommates are perfectly reasonable. They don’t know that their habits or hygiene bother you.

So here are some tips about what you can do if you get a bad roommate. First, see if you can get them to sit down and talk with you about the things you don’t like. Set up a system or a schedule if they are the type to always bring people over, if they never leave or if they never clean. Talk to the resident assistant if things are getting out of hand. Don’t ignore the problem expecting it to go away or thinking that it will end soon, or that others have to go through this as well. Ignoring the problem will make you bitter and make the roommate experience even worse. If all else fails and no system or talk will work out then, as a last ditch option, ask a different roommate or to move to a different room. This is only if you get a bad roommate though.

There is always the chance that you could get a good roommate that you really get along with. If you get a roommate like that then don’t let them go. Ask them if they would mind rooming with you the following year and when you go to apply for a room for next semester make sure that both yourself and the person you want to live with put each other’s information down on the application.

All in all, the roommate experience doesn’t have to be a bad one. You have the possibility of making a new friend or making a bad situation better. The roommate situation is not as scary as it sounds, I hope that everyone ends up with a roommate they can get along with in the fall.

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