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Roommate Q

As others have said, sometimes random works out and other times it's a disaster, and the same goes for living with friends you already know.

Personally, I did the random thing, and was paired with a somewhat awkward farm kid who was pretty shy and hadn't yet had his growth spurt. No kidding -- he looked like he was 12 years old! We got along ok but weren't really friends at first, and we each pretty much did our own thing. Between move-in date and Christmas break, he grew about 6 inches, and by the end of the year we got to know each other pretty well and he really came out of his shell.

After the dorms, he and I lived in an apartment with 2 other guys from the same floor. We were all in each other's weddings and still keep in touch 10 after graduation. The random roommate process really taught me the value of not rushing to judgment on people who may seem to have a different personality and learning how to get along with people who aren't a carbon copy of myself, which are great life skills.
 
I had a random freshman year in Larch. We didn't really hang out, but got along perfectly fine. I mostly hung out with another group on my floor, then moved in with a buddy from the paintball club my sophomore year.
 
ISUCubswin said:
Random roommate sucks. Get a buddy to room with you. Parents will say "friends shouldn't room with friends because it'll ruin the friendship," but really, for guys, it's fine. It's girls that **** everything up.

My first semester was the worst. My roommate snored, smelled, farted when I had friends over, and slept from 6 AM - 6 PM, and played games with his Japanese e-friends from 6PM - 6 AM (yes, those times are correct.) He was kicked out because he failed every class. The next semester, I got a buddy from hs to room with me. I learned a lot about him but we only got to be better friends, and I actually was able to get 10x more social with a roommate that wasn't a freak.
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This is exactly what happened to me. My roommate first semester was as anti-social as it gets, and it made the experience pretty miserable. Second semester I roomed with a buddy from high school and it made all the difference. We became best friends and I was just the best man in his wedding.
 
I am not a fan of randoms. Was in a "we don't have enough rooms in the dorms" double room with three residents at Towers freshman year. One girl was great and we are still friends 30 years later; the other was a heroin addict who played Queen loud enough to shake the room 24/7. Sophomore year, roomed with a friend first semester who dropped out when her mother died, and then got another random. She went out the first night and I woke up in the middle of the night to the sex noises with the guy she just met, which happened quite often the rest of the semester. So one out of three randoms worked for me. I think it might be better if you are on a floor maybe that is concentrated with engineers or something, at least you might be starting out with things in common and a similar need to actually work fairly hard.
 
carvers4math said:
I am not a fan of randoms. Was in a "we don't have enough rooms in the dorms" double room with three residents at Towers freshman year. One girl was great and we are still friends 30 years later; the other was a heroin addict who played Queen loud enough to shake the room 24/7. Sophomore year, roomed with a friend first semester who dropped out when her mother died, and then got another random. She went out the first night and I woke up in the middle of the night to the sex noises with the guy she just met, which happened quite often the rest of the semester. So one out of three randoms worked for me. I think it might be better if you are on a floor maybe that is concentrated with engineers or something, at least you might be starting out with things in common and a similar need to actually work fairly hard.
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Good point, they have learning communities for most of the majors, don't they? That's a good way to meet people with similar interests.
 
madebedforu-resized-600.jpg
 
I did the random roommate thing my first year and so did my other friends from highschool. Out of the 5 of us I was the only one to have a bad experience, and it wasn't really even that bad - he was just an idiot and messy. I guess it just depends on your tolerance level. If you can tolerate other people fairly well then you shouldn't have any problems with a random and it may work out for the better. If you don't tolerate other people, you may want to live with somebody you know or alone.

Funny thing is, I ended up living my last 3 years of college with one of my highschool friend's random roomates from our freshman year.
 
Go random; it's part of what leaving home is supposed to be about.

If you don't learn to get along with total strangers who don't necessarily share your culture, your religion, your philosophy, or your background, you're not getting the most out of your college experience.

If you don't want to learn that, stay home for the rest of your life with the people you grew up with.

(I know, that sounds really harsh to me, too)
 
Rooming with a friend you meet in the dorms has some advantages over rooming with HS friends.

The college friend KNOWS your quirks & habits (how loud you play your music...do you study much...do you throw your dirty laundry all over the room...do you have dust bunnies the size of mountain lions living under your bed, etc), by seeing you and your lifestyle in action in the dorms.

Your high school friend just THINKS they know all your living quirks (your room was spotless in high school because your mother cleaned it for you or your father wouldn't fork over the car keys if you didn't keep it clean, and now on your own you're a sloth, etc.).

One major thing you should figure out IN ADVANCE: Is the person a morning person or a night owl? If you're a night owl, rooming with a morning person is a deal-breaker.
 
College is all about experiences. Go for the rando. You might get along and you might not but at least you'll know what it's like to be in that situation. You'll grow a lot in knowing yours and others limits.

I had a random roommate from Chicago. Totally normal dude. We didnt really hang out much on the weekends since he was always working. For the most part our schedules didnt match up but we made it work. Most nights when I knew he was working early and I'd be up late tooling around the dorm floor, I'd just crash on the futon of one of the other friends I met that year. After freshman year he transferred back to Illinois, because of out of state tuition. We kept in touch for a few years after when he'd come back to Ames to see his frat friends.

Don't really know where I'm going with the story other than to illustrate that random roommates can workout.
 
ISUCubswin said:
Random roommate sucks. Get a buddy to room with you. Parents will say "friends shouldn't room with friends because it'll ruin the friendship," but really, for guys, it's fine. It's girls that **** everything up.

My first semester was the worst. My roommate snored, smelled, farted when I had friends over, and slept from 6 AM - 6 PM, and played games with his Japanese e-friends from 6PM - 6 AM (yes, those times are correct.) He was kicked out because he failed every class. The next semester, I got a buddy from hs to room with me. I learned a lot about him but we only got to be better friends, and I actually was able to get 10x more social with a roommate that wasn't a freak.

Ask Rabbuk or Whatcha.
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I can confirm all this to be true.

However, I had a ****ty random roommate and just dealt with it. Really only slept in my room, never did much else there unless he went home to visit his crazy gf (which happened quite often actually). I ended up moving into an empty room across the hall when someone dropped out early 2nd semester
 
Man I had a horror story for a roommate my first year at UNI. I took a year off after high school before college to make a little money, be closer to family, yadda yadda. For some reason, I decided I wanted a random roommate, not thinking, "Hey, its their second year, they still don't have any friends to be their roommate, they're probably weirdos."

The kid didn't and had never drank, which certainly isn't a problem...until they decide to drink. I came back one day around 8pm and opened the door to our room. It reeked of booze horribly. Dude is sitting on the couch with a 3/4 gone bottle of SoCo. I'm say, "Dude, you been gettin after it or what?"

"Yeah, my cousin bought me some stuff to try out! Check it out! (Shows me bottle, proceeds to open fridge to show me half of a 6 pack of Guinness gone)"

I don't know about you guys, but I enjoy Guinness...just not for my first beer and not after drinking 3/4 of a bottle of Southern Comfort. I tell the kid that more than likely, he's going to vomit tonight. When he does spew, don't spew in the sink. I'm going out right now, don't vomit in your sleep.

3am comes, I open the door and am immediately hit with the smell of vomit. His loft was right next to the door, he looks down and informs me that he did in fact spew, but not to worry, he didn't do it in the room. I'm hammered, I'm like whatever. I start to get ready for bed, go to grab my toothbrush and realize bro had spewed all over the sink and up onto the mirror. I pull him out of his loft and make him scrub everything up.

The next day I told the dorm coordinator that I couldn't live with that kid any more. He tells me the only room they have open at that point was a single on the top floor that was infested with bees. I said sign me up.

Other weird things I witnessed that freak doing:

-Farting on his pillow and smelling it
-Rubbing one out in the middle of the night
-Trying to climb down his loft using his hands, only to backflip out and into the closet
-Doing "laundry" early in the AM while I was sleeping. By laundry I mean, taking dirty clothes out of the hamper, Fabreezing them and putting them back with clean laundry.
 
Cybyassociation said:
Man I had a horror story for a roommate my first year at UNI. I took a year off after high school before college to make a little money, be closer to family, yadda yadda. For some reason, I decided I wanted a random roommate, not thinking, "Hey, its their second year, they still don't have any friends to be their roommate, they're probably weirdos."

The kid didn't and had never drank, which certainly isn't a problem...until they decide to drink. I came back one day around 8pm and opened the door to our room. It reeked of booze horribly. Dude is sitting on the couch with a 3/4 gone bottle of SoCo. I'm say, "Dude, you been gettin after it or what?"

"Yeah, my cousin bought me some stuff to try out! Check it out! (Shows me bottle, proceeds to open fridge to show me half of a 6 pack of Guinness gone)"

I don't know about you guys, but I enjoy Guinness...just not for my first beer and not after drinking 3/4 of a bottle of Southern Comfort. I tell the kid that more than likely, he's going to vomit tonight. When he does spew, don't spew in the sink. I'm going out right now, don't vomit in your sleep.

3am comes, I open the door and am immediately hit with the smell of vomit. His loft was right next to the door, he looks down and informs me that he did in fact spew, but not to worry, he didn't do it in the room. I'm hammered, I'm like whatever. I start to get ready for bed, go to grab my toothbrush and realize bro had spewed all over the sink and up onto the mirror. I pull him out of his loft and make him scrub everything up.

The next day I told the dorm coordinator that I couldn't live with that kid any more. He tells me the only room they have open at that point was a single on the top floor that was infested with bees. I said sign me up.

Other weird things I witnessed that freak doing:

-Farting on his pillow and smelling it
-Rubbing one out in the middle of the night
-Trying to climb down his loft using his hands, only to backflip out and into the closet
-Doing "laundry" early in the AM while I was sleeping. By laundry I mean, taking dirty clothes out of the hamper, Fabreezing them and putting them back with clean laundry.
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haha, you win!

I forgot about my random summer roommate - who moved in at 3am on a Sunday, proceeded to unpack all of her loudest ****, leave the light on, have a webcam chat with her bf back in Taiwan.
 
cowgirl836 said:
haha, you win!

I forgot about my random summer roommate - who moved in at 3am on a Sunday, proceeded to unpack all of her loudest ****, leave the light on, have a webcam chat with her bf back in Taiwan.
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When did you webcam with your cows in Illinois?
 
pourcyne said:
Go random; it's part of what leaving home is supposed to be about.

If you don't learn to get along with total strangers who don't necessarily share your culture, your religion, your philosophy, or your background, you're not getting the most out of your college experience.

If you don't want to learn that, stay home for the rest of your life with the people you grew up with.

(I know, that sounds really harsh to me, too)
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This completely. Not sure where the OP grew up, but if you come from a smaller town, getting a random is a good start to broadening your horizons. The guys that hung around with their high school buddies drove me nuts. Hearing a couple guys reminisce about how awesome something was from high school was my cue to keep moving.

It's very easy to spend very little time in your dorm room if the roomate doesn't work out. My first one wasn't great, but we were respectful of each other's things. We never really hung out, had different circles of friends, etc but it was fine.

And this has been regurgitated a bunch in other threads, but leave your door open. Probably the best way to meet people.
 
My first class was at 10 MWF, 9 TTH. I did that on purpose because I'm not a morning person. My roommate felt the need to get up every morning at five, wash her hair, and then blow-dry it in front of the mirror in our room (despite the fact that we had lots of outlets & shelf space in front of huge mirrors in the community bathroom (we didn't even have a sink in our dorm room).

I liked studying with my radio playing softly as white noise to drown out all the noise on the floor. She needed absolute quiet. Instead of going to the quiet room that the dorm had for studying, she would come in, walk over & turn off my radio and plunk down with her books - no please, thank you, how's your mother or anything. However, if she didn't need to study, she had no problem having the door open, and having friends come in and chat, regardless of whether or not I was studying or writing a paper or whatever.

All girls dorm: she would bring her boyfriend up to our room during the permitted hours (yes, this was a long time ago; guys had to be escorted), and would rarely let me know BEFORE walking in with him, meaning I had to be dressed at all times or risk giving him a peep show...no lounging around in various comfortable stages of undress in my own room.

Let's just say when everything revolves around the preferences of your roommate (and you're as non-confrontational as I was back then), it doesn't make for a pleasant dorm experience.
 
ISUCubswin said:
Random roommate sucks. Get a buddy to room with you. Parents will say "friends shouldn't room with friends because it'll ruin the friendship," but really, for guys, it's fine. It's girls that **** everything up.

My first semester was the worst. My roommate snored, smelled, farted when I had friends over, and slept from 6 AM - 6 PM, and played games with his Japanese e-friends from 6PM - 6 AM (yes, those times are correct.) He was kicked out because he failed every class. The next semester, I got a buddy from hs to room with me. I learned a lot about him but we only got to be better friends, and I actually was able to get 10x more social with a roommate that wasn't a freak.

Ask Rabbuk or Whatcha.
Click to expand...
Was your roommate that giant kid?
 
Rabbuk said:
Was your roommate that giant kid?
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Yeah. Coughed all the time.

Came back from winter break and someone wrote "Dooshbag" on his name at the door. I didn't take it down because I wanted him to see it.

After two weeks in the semester, I Facebook messaged him asking if he knew classes started. He said yeah, he'd be in Ames soon.

Turns out he was in Ames packing up his stuff while I was in class. When I got back, all his stuff was out, and his name had been taken off the door.
 
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