Surviving college life one roommate at a time
For students who have lived in a family of eight and shopped for their own groceries for years, adjusting to college life and roommates may not pose a problem. For everyone else, it can be a foreign experience. There is no course on how to deal with roommates and no road guide for independence.
Choices first-time students make when entering college can be unexpected. Dorm or off campus apartment? Move in with friends or bunk with strangers? Pepperoni or ham and cheese Hot Pockets? Andie Laub, a junior majoring in math and statistics education, had to make adjustments going into her freshman year.
“I moved into Jones Hall my freshman year because my friend and I procrastinated moving, so we decided on a dorm at the very last second,” Laub said. “At first it didn’t really feel like I was officially moved out on my own.”
Having lived in both dorm and apartment settings, Laub said she felt like the apartment was a more social and relaxed environment.
“There are freshmen living in the dorms and they’re still adjusting, still getting used to the environment versus being in an apartment, (where) it’s a little more relaxed,” she said.
Kate Kendrick, a sophomore elementary education major and Laub’s former roommate, said if she were to do it again, she’d live in a dorm her first year in order to meet more people and attend more activities. Kendrick was accustomed to having her own space and monopoly over the television remote.
“One TV for four people, it was really hard” she said, “I had to get over it.”
Both Kendrick and Laub grew up with their own rooms, possessions and personal space. Once they moved to Logan, they had to learn to live together under one roof.
“If it’s your first year and you’re not living with people you don’t know, at least move in with one person you do know,” Laub said. “That way you’re more yourself and you can make friends more easily.”
Jordan Brandley, a freshman majoring in biomechanical engineering, went the route of apartment living with family.
“I live with my cousin in an apartment off campus,” he said. “I like that I know who my roommates are. I knew my apartment manager beforehand, too.”
With shared living quarters come shared cleaning duties. Some students go the route of cleaning charts and assignments, while others take a simple, self-responsible approach.
Kendrick said she strove to be the clean roommate.
“I couldn’t be as messy,” she said. “I had to clean up after myself, even though my roommates didn’t. I wanted to be the clean one.”
Laub said she tried out chore charts and cleaning assignments her freshman year, but neither worked out. Instead, she cleaned up after herself and took care of other tasks when she saw it was needed. Brandley did the same.
“Take care of your stuff, I’ll take care of mine,” he said.
A large part of cleaning up after oneself is taking care of cooking messes. Some freshmen, like Laub, found themselves gaining unwelcomed weight once they could no longer bank on Mom’s healthier meals.
“My freshman year I gained 15 pounds for sure,” Laub said. “Up here I didn’t have the same diet when I was at home because I don’t know how to cook. I was living on grilled cheese sandwiches.”
Though Kendrick gained weight from her over-processed diet during her freshman year, she said she hasn’t changed much.
Though unhealthy convenience food is the route followed by many a college student, there is another way. Registered dietician, and “Lifechanger” to Dr. Drew, Rachel Beller released a list of groceries that provide for healthy dorm room diets without sacrificing convenience. Some of these include fiber-rich cereal, salad bags with romaine or baby spinach, frozen vegitables, fruit and Greek yogurt.
In the end, Laub said the adjustments she made were hard, but that they helped her in the long run.
“From living alone to living with six girls,” Laub said, “it was weird to go from having everything to myself to sharing everything. It wasn’t a hard adjustment, I just had to get used to it.”
Laub said moving in with someone she knew smoothed the transition from only child life to life with roommates.
“It was easy because I was moving in with a friend I had grown up since I was four,” she said. “It was kind of like a big sleepover for the whole year.”
– noelle.johansen@aggiemail.usu.edu