The stories you are about to read are true. These are the stories you tell around the campfire with a flashlight shining into your face, the stories you pray you will never experience. These are freshman year roommate stories.
When freshmen move out of their parents’ homes and into dorms, one new concern takes precedent over all others. “Will I like my roommate?”
A sophomore double majoring in journalism and communications and living in Carpenter Complex said she felt the same anxiety when she first moved. She did not know any of her three roommates before she moved in.
“I moved in after them —in January of 2005 — and there were three girls who were already friends,” she said. “I was kind of left out.”
Students living in Carpenter can have their privacy because they all have their own rooms with a shared common area. For students who plan to live in more traditional style dorms, such as Richardson Towers, the experience can be more invasive.
One senior recalled leaving the room to go to the vending machines and getting the “shock of her life” when she returned. She found her roommate in bed with a boyfriend.
“I went to my side, got my pillow and my covers and spent the night in my friend’s room,” she said.
A student at The University of Illinois said his roommate got involved with drinking and drugs. Eventually, his roommate also stopped going to class.
Students at The U of M who wind up with bad roommates can make a room change on the first Thursday and Friday after they move into the dorms, according to Glenda Barton, residence life supervisor. Barton said students may change rooms after the official roommate switch process, but they must first talk with a Residence Life staff member.
“We try to help them learn to get along with each other and accept each others’ differences and learn from them,” Barton said. “It’s a growing time for them, too.”
Not all lessons are easily learned. One student said her roommate rearranged her furniture while she was out of town because the roommate felt like she wasn’t getting enough space.
“I took the liberty of moving my stuff back and putting it where it was,” she said. “She ended up moving out the next day, I had the whole room to myself.”
Residence Life tries to keep the students grouped together by floors. Barton said this happens because many of the floors are specialized such as Freshman First, Honors and Emerging Leaders. Freshman First floors are designed to help freshmen adjust to college life, while the Honors program and Emerging Leaders’ floors are normally “quiet floors” to foster studying.
There is no limit on the number of times a student can change rooms, but the change is based on availability. Barton said Residence Life also looks at age, classification and smoking preference before placing a student in a different room.
Some students said they have found ways to force their roommate to move. One student in the theater program recalled how he got rid of his roommate who opened the blinds early in the morning.
“On the days he would get in late, I would get up early, like 5 a.m., roll up the blinds, turn the music up sky high and sing like I was extra joyful,” he said. “I would get bottles and pretend there was liquor in them and take swigs of it every morning because he hated that and he moved out.”
After a roommate moves, Residence Life usually takes the other student through a “consolidation” process. The student receives a list of other single-room students on their floor and he or she is able to choose a roommate from that group.
“We do this so the people who have paid for a single are getting a single and someone who hasn’t paid doesn’t have a single,” Barton said. “But it also allows space to be available. If we have roommate conflicts, it allows us another room that we have that is completely vacant to work that situation out. Plus, we also have people who are assigned after the semester begins. (Consolidation) gives us the ability to provide those rooms.”
Even after consolidation, there is no guarantee that roommates will be compatible. A junior nursing major had two roommates and was unable to find one she liked. She said her roommate would let her alarm clock go off two or three times each morning and come in late with no consideration for her.
“She would have to be at class at 9 and her alarm would go off at 6:45,” she said. “My class was not until 10:20.”
Even though she has not had a good experience with roommates thus far, this young woman has not allowed the experience to get her down.
“Well, some roommates are inconsiderate and others are considerate just depending on who you get,” she said. “It’s a 50/50 chance on who you get.”
One senior double majoring in chemistry and finance has been happy with many of his past roommates. He said getting to know his roommates was the hardest part, but after he got past the introductions, the relationship developed into a friendship.
“I said to him, ‘why are you mean to me?’ Then he said, ‘I’m not mean. It’s just that I don’t talk to a lot of people,’” he said. “After that, we got to talking and we’ve been best friends ever since.”
