Living with strangers: the lottery of having roommates
When moving to college, it can sometimes be difficult for incoming Aggies to decide where to live. The decision between apartments or houses, on-campus or off-campus, roommates or not, can be tricky to make.
Cassie McArthur, a psychology major, said she’s happy with the decisions she made regarding her living situation. She rooms with her best friend, her best friend’s cousin, that cousin’s best friend, the cousin’s sister and then someone none of them had known before moving in.
“I basically have family living with me,” McArthur said. “It’s nice to be able to have that support.”
However, there are still difficulties. From time to time, chores don’t get done or people get annoyed with one another.
“My roommate is my best friend that I grew up with,” she said. “People said that we were going to hate each other once we lived together. I feel like we have gotten closer.”
McArthur said any problems found between her and her best friend get dropped fairly quickly due to how close they are. Regardless of how well she knew her roommate, she said she would do her best to become closer to her.
“You don’t have to be best friends,” she said, “but if you are sleeping in the same room with someone every night then you might as well become friends and make the best of it.”
Expecting a living situation without tension is not something you’re going to receive, even if you know someone before you move in with them.
With McArthur’s living situation, people do feel left out from time to time due to how close some people are and not others. They do their best to make everyone feel as included as possible.
Hannah Simmons, an accounting major, is very fond of the girls she lives with.
“We have made a shower schedule and a chore chart on our whiteboard,” Simmons said, “so there are no problems in the morning for showers and who is supposed to clean, and it works really well.”
None of the girls knew each other before moving in with one another but they have all bonded since the school year began.
“We do get along,” she said, “there are times we are annoyed by each other, but that’s what happens when you live together.”
According to Simmons, the biggest problem her roommates had was when friends stayed until late into the night and were noisy. This caused the others not to be able to sleep and created tension in their suite.
“We had a long meeting and rewrote our roommate agreements to make sure everyone knew the rules and we all agreed on them,” Simmons said. “It hasn’t been a problem since.”
They created their own in-dorm quiet hours to follow and posted them up on the wall along with a clock. This helped both roommates and guests know how long they are welcome to stay.
“I am rooming with five more strangers next semester,” Simmons said, “and I’m super excited. It’s a great way to make new friends you may never have had. They end up being your best friends.”
Originally, Simmons had a lot of problems with her in-roommate. After a while, the two opened up to one another and have bonded since then.
“I think living with strangers is the best way to do it,” Simmons said, “you gain so many new friends and it’s an amazing experience.”
Amanda Sue Pieper currently lives with three other girls, none of which she knew previously.
“I really love my living situation, all of us girls get along well and we’ve become really close,” Pieper said.
There has been some problems with chores in her room because no one wants to do them. After a while, they will get done by someone, but there is some tension before then.
“I would definitely room again with the people I room with now,” Pieper said. “We’ve gotten to be good friends. I wouldn’t be afraid of living with other people either.”
Pieper’s advice for incoming Aggies would be to just be themselves and everything will be okay in the end.
Francisco Story only has one roommate this semester. They didn’t know each other beforehand, but now they are very good friends.
“Our living situation is not bad at all,” Story said. “He stays up late at night and I get home from work late at night so that worked out really well.”
Story doesn’t ever feel any tension with his roommate and they share everything with one another — toaster, vacuums, etc.
Taylor Baldwin is a freshman this year who is rooming with five other girls, none of whom she knew previously.
“I get along with my roommates really well,” Baldwin said, “and there’s no drama.”
The only thing Baldwin doesn’t like is sharing a room with someone that has a different sleep schedule than she does.
“It’s definitely hard to get alone time,” Baldwin said, “sometimes I’ll just drive around Main Street by myself to get away.
In the future, she said she would feel nervous about rooming with strangers again. She feels as if she lucked out this semester with her roommates and isn’t so sure it would happen again.
“My advice would be to get out and do things,” Baldwin said, “have at least one thing you want to do each day.”
A freshman this semester who wished to remain anonymous said she has not had such luck with her roommates.
She has her own room, but shares with four other girls in her suite.
“I don’t really like my living situation currently because my roomies don’t really talk to me at all,” she said, “when they need to tell me something about chores they leave a passive-aggressive sticky note on my door or in the hall.”
She came up to Utah State in order to be closer to some of her best friends that are currently attending school here. She said this may be the reason why her roommates don’t get along with her as well as they do with one another.
“I’ve tried being friendly a lot,” she said, “but I don’t really get much in response; usually just a small ‘hi’ back or just ignoring me.”
She spends most of her time with her best friends because she doesn’t feel welcome in her dorm.
“When I’m actually at my dorm I stay in my room as much as possible and avoid running into any roommates,” she said, “they never really explained much to me when I first moved in about the way they run things around here.”
At one point, there was no toilet paper in the bathroom for two months because no one was willing to put any in. She thinks it was her turn to put it in the bathroom, but no one told her.
“I feel like they hate me,” she said, “I have my own room with just an extra empty bed and that makes it even harder to connect with any of them. They all knew each other and hung out together. I basically just feel like an outsider.”
She said rooming with strangers works a lot better for those who move in during the fall semester. Coming up for the spring doesn’t help with gaining the friendships everyone else creates during the previous semester.
“One of my roommates is actually pretty rude to me,” she said, “I say ‘hi’ to her when I’m out on campus and she just glares at me. I don’t think I’m going to room with strangers again.”
—savannah.lund@aggiemail.usu.edu
@savannah_lund