Roommates
You may have come to campus having never shared a room with someone else. Being a good roommate and enjoying living with a roommate will depend upon your ability to communicate and compromise. Obviously, you and your roommate are individuals with unique interests, hobbies, likes, and dislikes. It is not essential that you are similar in every aspect of life in order to be good roommates. As with any relationship, conflicts will arise. How you choose to handle those conflicts will determine your success.
Roommates who respect each other’s rights and privacy and allow reasonable socialization tend to have positive experiences. As a result, all first-year students are required to develop a roommate agreement during the first weeks of school in order to prevent potential conflicts. Your Resident Adviser will guide you through this agreement in August. Returning students are strongly encouraged to complete a roommate agreement, particularly if the students have not previously lived together.
If you and your roommate experience difficulties living together, first try referring back to your agreement and have a conversation with each other. If that is not successful, or if you want to talk through your conversation first, feel free to reach out to your community staff who can help mediate the conflict. In the end, sometimes no matter how hard you try, it just does not seem to be working out with you and your roommate. It is possible to change rooms during the open room change periods if space is available on campus.
Please note, the Office of Residence Life and Housing does relocate students as a result of roommate conflicts and/or disagreements.