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You are here: Student Success Skills » Preparing for College » Selecting Roommates

Student Success Skills

Selecting Roommates

by jennifer
July 13, 2012

There are many factors that come into play when you are trying to choose a roommate. Your roommate should be someone who shares your values and enjoys the same activities as you and has the same academic needs. There are also a couple other characteristics you must look for as well. Some of those include: knowing you can trust someone to not invade your space, someone who is funny and keeps you relaxed, and someone you can depend on when the time is needed.

Being dependable is something you must look for in a roommate. You and your roommates must have a similar way of living. If you enjoy clean space, you must be able to depend on them to clean up after themselves. You must also respect them enough to clean up after yourself. You must rely on them every time they walk out the door to lock it. 

Trust comes into play because you must know that the person you live with doesn’t use your personal things without your permission. You also wouldn’t want them to invade your personal space without your permission. Along with this, you need to be confident that they also wouldn’t let anyone else violate your space. Something else to remember is to treat your friend’s possessions like you would like yours treated. You don’t borrow their belongings without asking, and they’ll do the same with you.

Living with someone who enjoys the same activities as you can be very important. When you both can do things together, then you both are less likely to get annoyed with each other. Say for example, you and your roommate have a different program that comes on TV at the same time. You could find something you like to do to let your roommate use the TV. You could watch your show later. Little things like this will keep you both from getting frustrated with each other.

Someone who has good communication skills will help keep things relaxed while living together. Maybe if you get stressed out easily, living with someone who makes you laugh will help you get relaxed. Another big point of having good communication is the fact that you’re in college and have enough problems and complications. You don’t want someone to come to you and talk to you about stuff that you don’t need to worry about. They must understand when to drop certain conversations when there is no need to have any type of argument.

The most important thing that is to be considered when choosing the best roommate is finding someone who shares your values. When you share values, you understand each other. You enjoy spending time and doing the same activities together.

Finally, you should find someone in a like major. What you don’t want is someone who never has to study. When you are in comparable majors, you will be able to have many of the same classes. This helps you establish better rules for study time.

After contemplating these factors, you should be able to pick a roommate that best suits your personality. Even if you don’t know the person before you start living with them, this could also be a good thing. This will enable you to branch out and meet new people. Either way, living with someone can get complicated. You have to make sure you will get along with the person and if you don’t, you need to be able to communicate with them and let them know what the problem is. However, having a roommate during your college years will be an experience that will stay with you long after you graduate..

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Testimonials

  • I have changed and adopted some things. First is my time management. I learned how to manage my time by using simple things like the what to-do-list. I never thought about using time between classes in doing useful things. I used to either go back to my apartment if that break is long or just use my phone in texting. However, I do realize how can I use that time, I usually spend my time in the engineering lab even if I have everything done, I just go and figure out what to do because in anyway its better than going back to the apartment. Additionally, I learned a very useful thing like the cheat sheet. I have never heard of this until I took this class. I think even if it’s not permitted to be used in some classes, it benefits me in reviewing before a test and quizzes since most of what is going to be covered is in there. What I like here is that everything we learn can be used in real situations or study cases. For instance, I learn some tips for studying such as flash cards and when I try it, it works quite perfectly..

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