Choosing your roommate at university
Most students look forward to the freedom and independence which they feel they will experience away from home, but they often have an unduly rosy view of what their university accommodation will be like. Many of them do not realize that they may well have to share a room with another student.
University accommodation is often in short supply and rooms are often big enough to accommodate more than one student. Thus, students who were used to enjoying the privacy of their own room at home might be in for an unpleasant shock.
In countries where are a great many universities and a great many students, few students, in their first year at least, are given the choice as to whether they would rather share a room with a stranger or with someone whom they already know. In the later years, of course, when students have had a chance to get to know each other, it is common for students to choose their roommates. However, in the first year, students are usually assigned a roommate.
I would much rather share with someone who was known to me than with a roommate who was assigned to me. If we are sharing a room, we have nowhere to go where we can be alone and have our privacy. I think that people who already know each other are more likely to be understanding of each other’s needs and to respect each other’s privacy.
Sharing a room with someone brings you physically very close to him and I would think that it would help quite a bit to know something about the other person and his habits in advance. Starting university is a big step in the life of a young person and it brings a host of new and often nerve-racking experiences. There are enough of such experiences to deal with, without having the additional problem of sharing a room with someone whom you know nothing about. Getting to know a new person is a learning curve, and it is not always a pleasant one.
Sharing a relatively small space with anyone is difficult at the best of times. It is all too easy to get on each other’s nerves and to get irritated by each other’s bad habits. Even siblings who are very fond of each other find this a problem. How much more difficult it must be to share your room with a stranger!
The worst scenario would be if you and the unknown roommate had completely different personalities, character traits and tastes. One might be tidy to an obsessive extent and the other extremely messy, one might be very cheerful in the morning and the other grumpy; one might like to go to bed early and the other might like to stay up until the wee small hours; one might like to listen to classical music and the other to loud pop music. Sharing a room could be a terrible experience!
If you are allowed to choose someone whom you already know, you are more likely to be able to avoid the worst scenario. You may not happen to know anyone who would make the absolutely ideal roommate. However, sharing is all about compromise and it is often easier to reach a compromise situation with someone you already know.
