College is the time for new experiences; no one would suggest otherwise. But how much importance should colleges place on providing new experiences for incoming freshmen? How valuable is it to room with a stranger? New York Times opinion writer Anna Altman explores these questions and comes to a definitive conclusion in this article from September 2014.
Read it here: Altman, "A college education should include rooming with a stranger”
- Altman makes no mystery of her position; in fact, it’s right there in the title of the article. Still, she doesn’t ignore opposing arguments. How does she present opposing views? What kind of attitude does she display toward them? Reasonable? Mocking? Respectful? Belittling? Does Altman’s treatment of opposing views enhance her own argument? Why or why not?
- The evidence that Altman presents primarily comes from “experts,” that is, scholars and journalists who have researched the topic of roommates. Would Altman’s argument have been strengthened by including interviews with current dorm residents who have roommates? Why or why not?
- Suppose you are trying to find a roommate on Craigslist. What qualities would you look for? How much importance would you place on the person’s similarity to you? Would ethnicity matter? Social class? Shared interests? Why or why not? Explain your reasoning.
- Whether or not you have had the experience of living in a dorm or apartment with someone you didn’t already know, you almost certainly have opinions about it. Write an essay in which you respond to the question of whether rooming with a stranger is (or would be) a valuable experience, using Altman (and any of her sources) as your They Say. Support your ideas with your own experiences and those of people you know. In your essay, include some reasoned and respectful discussion of opposing views.
They Say I Blog 
I think that room mates are good for your freshman year. The article makes a good point that you can break the habit of making friends with the same type of people. This is a good way to network through the new people you meet and the groups they are associated with. But how compatible the room mates are to you has a effect on the outcome of what you will get out of it. If you were roomed with someone who is exactly like you, you will probably gain nothing. But if you’re with a stranger who is unlike you, you will have to learn how to deal with different types of people in a positive respectful manner. You can get more out of this than you can loose.
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In her article, Anna Altman shares the opinions of many writers on the topic of college roommates, and whether it is best for roommates to be mutually requested or randomly chosen. Those who state that is best for roommates to mutually request each other, whether it be through mutual friends or pairing sites such as RoomSync, argue that it not only helps the students, but also the university. For the students, it can prevent the excess stress of not getting along with a roommate. For the university, it can save money and time from having to rearrange rooming situations that did not work well. Those who support random roommates urge that it can “expand” students’ “horizons” by forcing students to interact with people who are different from themselves. They suggest that “this is the one time” a student can live with “someone who is completely different.”
Though I concede that there are both positives and negatives to both scenarios, I believe that students should be allowed to chose what is best for them. For some, college is the first time they have left the town they grew up in, and being placed in a new environment with a random roommate could be too much for them to handle. For these students it may be best for them to room with someone they know from home, or who they have previously met before. However, some students may be eager to try new things and be exposed to many different types of people. These students may thrive in an environment where they are constantly exposed to new things that a random roommate can provide. But regardless of what is beneficial to each student, it is imperative that the students are allowed to make the decision about what is best for them.
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I think having a stranger has a roommate as a freshman is a good thing. I think it is a great experience for each student. It’s good thing because you go in with an open mind. Honestly I think having a someone new as a roommate would expand a student horizon to meet and mingle with new students at their school. This will make the students want to make new friends. I also really like that the author use different sources to get all different views about this topic. One thing that I thought was neat is having an app to find a roommate with the same likes. I like the idea that having an app to help you find someone because some students could find it to much to deal with not knowing who they are going to be with. Which I can understand that, the thought of not knowing who you are going to be with could be very stressful for someone. I just thought that was a great to find a roommate that was perfect for you to be with. I really enjoy reading about this topic because I really do plan to transfer to a college where I know I will be rooming with someone that I know I won’t know.
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I believe that having a stranger as a roommate is a wonderful thing when you are starting your first year of college. It lets you open your mind and open your social skills and meeting new people. It is also giving you an opportunity to see other cultures, religions, interest, and styles in other people. You never know what to expect. You could know nothing about that person and then all of a sudden become the best of friends with them due to having common interest. Having someone you do not know as a roommate is a wonderful idea for colleges. You get to meet people from all over the United States. It is a great opportunity.
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I think that having a stranger as a roommate is also a good thing. It would really teach you how to get along with all types of people and that to not judge. It would also show you that if you get to know someone new they might be a good or a bad person. Also that you should always give new people a chance not to just blow them off due to looks.
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I think that having a roommate that’s a stranger is also a good thing. The article had good points about rooming with someone with the same likes as you. How are you going to learn to get along with other that are completely different than you are, if you cant even room with someone different than you. I would love hate that situation. I like my house clean and done a certain way, a roommate might be the opposite and I hate picking up after people. But I would also like to get to know someone new and learn to work with there good and bad habits.
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Well, from my personal experience rooming with a complete stranger or strangers can be a very valuable experience. Eighth grade through sophomore year i had to room with 12 other girls who had very different personalities, and who also varied in race and up bringing. It was hard for me to adapt to this living. I had to clean up after people i didn’t even know not matter how nasty they were because it was part of the chore that was assigned to me. Before this the only other people I’ve ever lived with were my mother and little sister. Olga Khazan basically said that roommates adopt each others habits. That’s pretty much what happened with me and the only close friend i had at this school i went to my 8th grade through sophomore year. I noticed that the longer we lived in the dorm together, the closer we got and then the closer we got the more we tended to act like each other. Our speech were the same, our body language, and even other looks. It became so often that everyone thought we were related. So, living with a variety of people can really be a good thing. From this experience i have not only learned from the mistakes I’ve made like for one i remember this one time i had sneaked out of my dorm with some of the other girls that i lived with and we went to the boys dorms. We got caught half way there by the campus security and we all got detention for 3 weeks. But i also learned how to do different things that i thought i could never do like sewing a dress together. And i also developed life long friendships which for me is a big thing because it was always hard for me to trust others.
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I think is is very important to have a roommate that you do not know your freshmen year. The writer gives good examples on why she thinks that school should keep picking for the freshman. Yes more young people want to be with someone that they now or some one that they are comfortable with. But the writer said the college is for you to get to know other people. College roommates are so that you can learn to except the differences of other people. As Anna Altmen said “Roommates influence whether and which social organizations an individual joins, a choice that can have a profound effect on social networks throughout college and later in life as well as on career choice. Being assigned a roommate of a different race, for example, makes a student “more comfortable with interracial interaction,” Mr. Sacerdote says.” This is really true.
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Emmy and Rachel made great points here as to why having a stranger as a roommate is a good thing because it forces you to go in with an open mind and expand your horizons. However, based off my personal experience as a college freshman, I believe that students should be allowed to choose a roommate that is best for them. Like Sydney said, many students come from out of state, far from home and being placed in a new environment with a random roommate could be too much to handle. Not necessarily rooming with someone who you were best friends with, but someone you knew of or have mutual friends with. I was a little home sick at first coming from out of state and wish I had someone I new better to turn to. In my opinion, rooming with someone you are familiar with still gives you the opportunity to branch out and meet other people through Greek life, student organizations, classes, etc. My freshman year I went in with an open mind and was put with a stranger that made me feel very uncomfortable. I felt like I couldn’t be myself and avoided the room as much as possible. Unfortunately, this affected my whole freshman year and I always look back on it wishing I had gotten the same experience as my friends, who did know their roommates. This may have just been the case for me which is why I see both the positive and negatives of having a stranger as a roommate and agree with a lot of points made in previous comments.
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In response to Chauncey, I find it very interesting that you feel Olga Khazan was implying that roommates take on habits of each other. I would like to address both my support of this and my questioning of this. One point to make about this is that, you seem to assert that roommates will grow to be more and more like each other the more time they spend together but is this a positive or negative thing? You say that as you spent time with your roommates you became more alike, but one could raise concerns as to if you were taking on their habits or you felt alienated and wanted to fit in more by being more like them. The fact that someone would become more like their roommate could actually be better used as evidence against having roommates you do not already know, especially when you give the example of how your roommates negatively influenced you, leading you into trouble. One could raise the question that if you were paired with someone you picked, you would not have taken on a deviant personality adopted from the roommates you were randomly given. I am not saying this is a bad thing, just that it is interesting to consider both the positive and negative outcomes of such a thing. Emmy makes a great point about how a person is subject to being forced to mingle with people who may be unlike themselves or their normal group of friends. It is wonderful that this is related to expanding the students horizon, but this can be expanded upon. If a student is subject to friends unlike who the student would normal mingle with, the student would become more open and diverse. The student would be subject to other ways of acting and thinking and allowed to possibly alter their own ways accordingly. Finally, I fully agree with Sydney in that while random roommates may be accepted as a benefit, it is not a perfect fit. Everyone is different and has different needs, what is useful for one person may be detrimental to another. This is a fork in the discussion which was reasonably answered by Sydney, simply make having a random roommate a choice. Allow a student to choose what would be best for them. However, a fault to consider in this response to individual needs is that a student who feels they need a roommate they know may be a student who is most in need of being subjected to other styles of people. The student who wants a roommate they know may be the student in most need of experiencing this diversity.
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Although I have no experience with a long-term roommate, I do believe that it is a valuable experience to live with someone completely different. I think that trying to match personality is good in principle, but if you end up being too alike, that could also be a problem. My best friend and I have already made a pact to never be roommates because we believe that it could ruin our friendship. Being forced to live with a new person will help you later in life when it is expected that you deal with difficult people maturely.
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Long-term rooming with a with a with a roommate would be a good experience to have during college. I personally have never done this, but my brother has and it helped with creating new friends and influenced his college experience. Rooming with a person who is similar to you but not the same would help students who go out of state for college as well that way they have common ground with each other. Also this would be a great way to experience new cultures or backgrounds.
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When attending college for the first time, it can be frightening not knowing what to expect or not having anything to connect with. Rooming with a stranger can add to the fear. However, rooming with someone you may not know but still have similarities with can help with the feeling of uncertainty. Having a room-mate that is different from you but similar at the same time makes the feeling of fear go away quicker by having something to connect to but it also allows for a new experience and learning. I feel that having a long-term room-mate that shares similar characteristics with you but still is different in their own way, rather than a complete stranger, has a more lasting and beneficial affect in the long run.
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I think rooming with strangers is a good thing especially in college because it helps the students figure out what type of friend group they should hang out and which ones they shouldn’t hang out with. The roommate helps determine their decision.
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I think a roommate is a good thing because it forces you to get to know a new person and that’s what college is all about
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More recently, the standard way of thinking about college roommates has it that they should be prearranged in order to prevent as much conflict as possible. However, in “A College Education Should Include Rooming with a Stranger,” Anna Altman argues that living with a random person is an important experience for a college freshman. She states that rooming with a stranger is important because it tests one’s limits and can “expand horizons and open eyes” of many students regarding everything from behavior to extracurricular activities. Altman also mentions that students can become more comfortable with other ethnicities and socio-economic groups by living with a stranger, which can be helpful for their futures. Lastly, she claims that another benefit of random roommate assignments is the opportunity to gain negotiation and compromise skills.
By focusing on the “college experience” gained from having a random roommate, Altman overlooks the deeper problem of the experiences that could be lost permanently. Like Altman says, college is meant for students to get out of their comfort zones, but what she fails to recognize is the fact that freshman year of college is overwhelming enough and a roommate should be a sense of consistency and comfort. A student is dealing with plenty of change as it is and living with a person completely different from him/herself will only make the stress worse. While challenges can be beneficial, there are other ways to encounter and face them. For example, new clubs, classes, and friends can all expose students to unfamiliar races and socio-economic groups. Lastly, students will accumulate many new skills with a roommate no matter how much they know or don’t know them. Living with someone else is a learning opportunity in itself and the acquaintance of the roommate will not change this. Overall, there are so many risks involved in having a random roommate and the few benefits can be sought elsewhere on campus.
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I believe that having a random person as a room mate is a good thing. For, you learn to socialize with other people. College is a very different place from high school. The people are “more mature,” and much more diverse. if you are, in a way, forced to get along with the new room mate then it might open up the door to meeting other people and thus expanding the new freshman’s horizons.
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Despite the general concept of being matched up with a complete stranger based on superficial elements (race and music interests) sounding a bit strange, it is considered an important part of college living and ultimately life. Based on personal experience, rooming with a complete stranger is a great way of stepping out of your comfort zone and make friends. However, some students have not been as fortunate as I have in my experience with the way roommate match ups work. The article states that some colleges have implemented a matchmaker-like assessment where potential roommates are paired up based on similar interests. Although Stephanie Wu argues against the online dating-like algorithm as it does not accurately predict the possibility of a successful relationship between roommates, I believe that similar interests is a good start for a potential friendship to flourish. The article also states that sharing a room with a stranger also has a greater impact on the way an individual interacts with things that are different, for example, “rooming with someone from a lower socioeconomic class can increase support for policies like financial aid that help close the wealth gap”. Rooming with a complete stranger does seem like a scary concept, but it is a vital part of the ultimate college experience we all know and love.
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I think Roommate’s can be a new and fun experience to incoming freshman and I also think it could jumpstart some really good friendships. However I am one of those people who really do not like having to share rooms with people. I need my own space to think and breathe and I can barely do that in a room with someone I know let alone a stranger. I have currently not had to live in a dorm in my first year of college but I know once I transfer to the University I’m looking at I will need to find living arrangements. So this brings me to wonder If I should just deal with dorm life or should i find an apartment and live on my own. Coming from my stand point that roommates are just simply not my thing I believe the apartment life will be well suited for me. So maybe instead of trying to match students with strangers to live with for an entire semester colleges find a way to put students in a living situation they enjoy. If a student wants to be alone, let them be alone. If they want roommates, find them roommates. I think this would be a much more effective way to handle the situation.
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I believe that college is definitely a time for new experiences, and meeting new people. When you meet new people, it gives you a chance to converse with one another, and dispurse your points of views, thought, and opinions about a multitude of topics. It also gives you a chance to broaden your perspective on life, and even open your mind up to new experiences, and trying new things. Me personally, I haven’t had the opportunity to experience living in dorms, but I’m quite sure that if I had, I wouldn’t regret it , or change it for the world.
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Samuel Blockson made a great point about the article “A College Education Should Include Rooming with a Stranger” by Anna Altman and his point is that having a roommate with a different background from you makes you a better-rounded individual. College is a great time to step out of your comfort zone and meet new people and try new things. This all starts with the roommate. A random roommate gives you the opportunity to start college, the first day, with new people, with new ideals, and new interests. Samuel pointed out that roommates rub off on each other and this adds to the importance of having a random roommate in college. You might find that your roommate introduces you to undiscovered interests which can alter your current career path or choice of major. Also, College is a time to meet new people and make connections. A random roommate doubles the amount of people you are with because you are not only hanging out with people that share your interests, but also with people who have similar interests to your roommate. This can be important when entering the job force to have connections with different types of people.
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I think it’s good to have a roommate you absolutely do not know. It’s a better way to meet & hang out with new people. Who knows you might have something in common with that person. Also, you can be introduce to a new culture. When your a freshmen you don’t know anyone anyway. So why not have a stranger as a roommate.
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I agree that living with strangers can be a very valuable experience. I like talking with different persons who come form various places. Interacting with strangers actually improves my communicating skills and gives me some different knowledge. I had lived a guy who came form Africa, he knows a lot about guns, knowing shooting skills, how to maintain them. Living with strangers sometimes is a trouble, we have to adopt strangers’ strange habits. One of my roommates loves to sleep on the sofa, wherever he stays. However, in my experience, if you want to get a good roommate, some things you should do. The first is to get familiar with them, to invite them to go to local restaurants or bars is a good choice. And then you should show your attitudes to life such that you do not like noise, communicating before your roommates bring friends. Last step may be the hard one, being a true friend. Taking care of your roommates and often showing friendly smile to them may work.
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Devin makes a very good point here that roommates are good for your freshman year. Being matched up with roommates is very crucial for gaining the social experience college is meant to give you. You are no longer living alone in your own littler world, you now have to share your world with someone whom is not exactly the same as you. As Devin points out this can have positive and negative effects. The positive effects being that it can work as a networking system. Lets say you and your roommate hang out with different people, well you can bring those two groups together to make a bigger friend group. By stating this Devin is showing that having a roommate different than you is more beneficial and I couldn’t agree more. If you have a roommate who is just like you, you gain nothing from the experience. I can relate my roommate experiences to this. Throughout my college years I have been very lucky with roommates. I have gotten roommates that are not exactly like me but we are very compatible and good friends. They have influenced me to be a more rounded person and experience different views on life.
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I think that having a stranger as roommate for college is good. It forces you to get out of your comfort zone and learn how to communicate with someone else. You can create a different friend circle with your new roommate and become more social. Being in college requires responsibility. You and your roommate can become reliant on each other and hold each other accountable.
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I agree with Jin H. Coming to college and living with someone who you have never met gives you that “college experience”. When I first went to college I did not want to live with someone I did not know because of that fear of what they might do and I also did not want to share a bathroom with 10-15 other girls. But now looking back on it, I realize that this has given me the opportunity to get to know someone differently and learn knew things and it has honestly made me look at public places differently. I agree with all who think that living with a roommate who you do not know can make the college experience a true and also better one.
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I understand what Breanne and Patrick are saying about the benefits of having a random roommate and I do see their (your) point. However, my freshman roommate and I “randomly” found each other on Facebook, only met at orientation, and then moved in together. Even though I walked in on the first day knowing who she was, in a way it still had the same benefits as having a “random” roommate. All we really knew about each other is that we did not want to gain the Freshman 15 and we were buying matching bed sheets. Either way, you still have to learn to adjust to living with someone that you really do not know much about. You have to adjust to their quirks, habits, and so on. It was very hard at times because her and I are/were fundamentally completely different people, but at the end of the day we were friends and we got along very well. It was very nice to at least have someone that I picked out that I knew I would have some mutual interests with. It really did help create a more home-y and welcoming environment. It would have been very disheartening to have come into school on the first day and immediately known that I had nothing in common with my roommate and had to come home to that everyday. Obviously, that would be worse case scenario with random roommates, but it is something to consider. In both scenarios, completely random or not, there are a lot of pros and cons, but I do think that just because my roommate was not completely 100% random, does not mean that I missed out on some crucial college experience.
Quickly touching on Jin’s point about having a roommate from a different country–in high school I went to Exeter Academy for a summer school program and my roommate was from Turkey(yes random roommate). I loved rooming with someone from a different country! She was an incredible roommate and it was so interesting to learn more about her and where she was from. So yes, I guess I have had a random roommate experience, just not in college.
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Although I do agree with most of your statements about meeting new people and getting out of your comfort zone, sometimes roommates aren’t ideal. I guess just because me and my roommate didn’t click perfectly this is my opinion. I’m absolutely positive that if I had another person I would love it. It’s not that I dislike my roommate… she’s just a bit odd. I’m not exaggerating when i say the decorations she brought to hang up on her side of the room were paintings that she had painted. WITH HER OWN BLOOD. Yes, her blood. I didn’t want to offend her so i just sat back and screamed inside my head. I just thought to myself “out all of the stinking people on this campus, I get this girl.” So needless to say I’m moving into a single room next semester. I kind of hate that I’m giving up the roommate experience though. Being a freshman in college i was actually looking forward to it.
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Devin makes a great point here that living with people similar to yourself makes it hard to gain anything from a new friendship. Keeping roommates random contributes to new friendships as well as new lessons learned. College is a placed filled with different cultures and varieties of people anyway. Your comfort zone will be abandoned at times and living with someone you are different from only leads to a better understanding of various viewpoints, cultures, and ideas. The article makes an interesting point in that they say that colleges are “now offering single rooms to students.” Personally, I was placed in a dorm style where every roommate had their own individual room. I found this to limit social interaction and hinder the formation of friendships whether you are similar to your roommates or not. Keeping roommates random and in an environment that is socially interactive is key to having a successful learning experience your first year in college.
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I believe that Kelley makes a really good point about college being a chance to broaden your horizons. College is a bridge to adulthood. It is your chance to savor your last moments of childhood before starting a family of your own and having real world responsibilities. Personally, I feel like having a random roommate is just one way to better your experience. I went random roommate and have not regretted it at all. At first, I only had social media to go off of, and I was really worried about what I was getting myself into, but living with someone completely different has so many benefits. That’s not saying that we get along all the time, but we are different enough that it works. We are both involved, but in different things, so we have time apart. She keeps me fun when all I want to do is study and I hold her accountable to get work done. My roommate has become my support system and I’ve come to view her as a sister. I think that random roommate is one of the best things you can do because it not only forces you to meet new people, but when it works out, anything seems possible.
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In the article, “A College Education Should Include Rooming With a Stranger,” Anna Altman is discussing the reasons why it is important for students to have a random roommate their first year of college. She references many different people who have researched this topic. Altman states how there are now various social media applications that have been created in order for students to find roommates that are compatible with each other. She also says that colleges are offering single rooms for students, which takes away the risk of any problems occurring throughout the time living together. Altman says that due to certain articles that have been published, who a person lives with has a profound effect on their college experience. She says that who a person lives with affects their normal way of living such as drinking habits, weight gain or loss, and who each other interacts socially. Altman claims that by ruling out randomly chosen roommates starves first year students of the experience needed. Rooming with a stranger allows for a person to grow and adapt in a way they may have never on their own.
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I agree when Devin says that having random roommates is good to “break the habit of making friends with the same type of people.” From my person experience, I have made great friends with my roommate and suite mates, even though they are not people I would normally become close with. I also agree with the networking; putting four people together who all have different career plans is good for networking and getting involved. I am a biology major rooming with pharmacy, business, and computer science majors. Pushing our comfort zones and getting to know each other now is good for our networking and friendships later on.
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I agree with Devin when he states that rooming with different types of people “break the habit of making friends with the same type of people.” From my personal experience, I became friends with my roommate and suite mates, and they are not normally people I would become friends with. I also agree with the networking; as a biology major rooming with pharmacy, business, and computer science majors, we are all pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones and career zones, and it will be good to know people in other professions.
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I agree with Devin when he states that rooming with different types of people “break the habit of making friends with the same type of people.” From my personal experience, I became friends with my roommate and suite mates, and they are not normally people I would become friends with. I also agree with the networking; as a biology major rooming with pharmacy, business, and computer science majors, we are all pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones and career zones, and it will be good to know people in other professions.
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I agree with Sydney’s argument that students should be allowed to choose the living situation that best fits their personality. While I was eager to move from my hometown to the city where my university is located, I was worried about going to such a large school. However, knowing that I had a roommate eased some of my fears, because I knew that once I moved in, I would have another person to talk to who was sharing some of these feelings of nervousness with me. Even though I was excited by the idea of having a roommate, there are people who would prefer to live by themselves. These people often do not enjoy being placed into a situation where they are forced to interact with a stranger on a daily basis. If students are placed into situations that do not best fit their social needs, they may become more likely to perform worse academically than a person who is placed into a situation that fits their social needs. This is due to the potential for a student to become stressed about returning to their room where a person with whom they do not want to interact with is living. Were students able to rank their living preferences, there would be a higher chance that the university would place them into a living situation that best suits their needs, allowing them to excel in all aspects of their daily life.
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Samuel Blockson makes a valid point about the article “A College Education Should Include Rooming with a Stranger” by Anna Altman. He believes that it is beneficial to room with someone that comes from a different background. Blockson says that college is a time where we learn to interact with people and get out of our comfort zones, and he is correct in his assumption. A randomly assigned roommate allows you to expand your horizons and help you learn to live with someone you may not necessarily like. Samuel pointed out that roommates tend to pick up each others habits, and this is an important part of growing up because you might end up benefit greatly from the shared habits. His point can be applied to the example of finding connections because college is a time where you meet new people and forge connections. A random roommate aids in this because you are more likely to branch out and meet new people when you and your roommate are not friends starting out. This can be important when entering the job force to have connections with different types of people.
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With college fast approaching for many students our age, it seems to be a popular conversation topic. When talking about college, often times roommates get brought up. Who are you rooming with? Where do you want to live? Do you want to live with a stranger or someone you know? These are all questions that are being brought to our attention, and sometimes, things like this can be overwhelming to think about. When selecting someone to live with, there are many things to take into consideration, and there can be many pros and cons to rooming with a stranger.
In her article, “A College Education Should Include Rooming With a Stranger,” Anna Altman states that rooming with a stranger creates a well rounded college experience. She goes on to talk about how rooming with a stranger can expand your horizons and help you step out of your shell a bit. Altman also reports that with the increase in technology and social media programs, like Skype and Facebook, students can easily stay connected with hometown friends. This diminishes the need for rooming with a friend.
Random roommate selection is a good option for universities to provide, but it may not be the right fit for everyone. For those who may have trouble adjusting to new environments, having a random roommate could be overwhelming and detrimental to their college experience. If someone ends up with a roommate they are unhappy with, it is not only bad for them, but the college too. Altman states that Natasha Singer, a journalist for The New York Times, has reported, “… the problem of getting stuck with a incompatible freshman-year roommate can be expensive for the college. Moving students around within dorms can be a headache, but there’s even more at stake: the risk that students will be so unhappy that they might transfer out of the college before sophomore year.”
When we think of heading off to college, we envision moving in at the beginning of the school year and getting to know our new roommate as a positive experience. Evan Selinger, a reporter for Forbes, states that, “They (random roommates) can help students learn to better appreciate the value of living and working with people who are different.” We agree with Selinger because college is a time of preparation for a real-life career, and working with people who are different from us is a reality. We have a very optimistic outlook on meeting new people, exploring new things, and breaking out of our shells.
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Most high school seniors are used to waking up in the morning to see a familiar face. They have lived with this person for as long as they can remember, and don’t know anything different. Even if it’s not a parent, they fully trust this person and are used to living with them. It’s hard to imagine waking up to see a face that you’ve known for a few days or weeks. This happens to many seniors across the country when they start a new chapter in their life at college. Most first-year students have to live in a dorm with another student. Some choose to live with a familiar face, while others choose to live with randoms. Although it’s a scary thought, rooming with a new face can be beneficial in many ways.
When going to college, some people worry about what it will be like to have a random roommate. Little do they know that having an unfamiliar face as a roommate can bring in lots of new opportunities. Education is important when talking about college, but the social aspect is also important. College is supposed to make people step out of their comfort zones and figure out who they truly are as an individual. In the article, “The Science of Us,” Jesse Singal states, “When you examine this conundrum through the lens of ongoing economic, psychological, and sociological research into how roommates affect each other’s beliefs, interests, and prospects, it quickly becomes clear that random roommates shouldn’t be avoided and excluded, but rather sought out and celebrated as an important part of the college experience.” Random roommates aren’t so random after all with the technology advancements in recent years.
Social media has made it a lot easier to find a roommate you will be compatible with. Many schools have partnered with Facebook apps, such as RoomSurf and RoomSync, that use an algorithm to match you up with your most compatible partners. Once you are matched up, you have the opportunity to message them and make the final decision for yourself. Colleges are fans of these apps because it saves them the hassle of switching rooms and losing students to dropping out. Because of all these resources, your odds of having a compatible roommate and a good dorm experience are very high.
Rooming with someone new in college can open the door to new experiences and opportunities. In conclusion, then, as we suggested earlier, defenders of college students rooming with a familiar face can’t have it both ways. Their assertion that it’s detrimental to room with someone you didn’t previously know is contradicted by their claim that college is a massive learning experience filled with meeting new people. These new people could become life-long friends that you never thought you would meet.
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I think Breanne makes a good point, rooming with a stranger stretches you and teaches you to interact with someone you probably wouldn’t have before. Freshman year of college is full of so many new experiences that adding an unknown roommate enhances the experience. I definitely think it is best to have a roommate freshman year as opposed to living alone. Living with someone establishes invaluable social skills you can’t gain anywhere else. It also teaches you how to deal with someone who is not exactly like you. Part of college is the social experience and life lessons and this practice definitely helps with both of those. Also, many people try to find someone through a mutual friend to room with freshman year or live with someone they already know. Often this practice does not end up well for either person. Knowing you will have a stranger as a roommate forces you to go into freshman year with an open mind.
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Though I concede with Breanne that random roommate assignments are a good part of the college experience to an extent, I still insist that colleges need give you the option for a matching process or even bringing in your own roommate. I have had my fair share of random roommates, and it all boils down to safety and trust. If you don’t trust your roommate it is not going to be a good semester or year. Similarly, if you don’t feel safe with your random roommate, like I did, it could lead to a number of problems that go beyond being able to be fixed between the roommates themselves.
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In Response to Devin, I agree that the type of roommate that you have as a freshman can have a large impact on your first year college experience. Like you said, “This is a good way to network through the new people you meet and the groups they are associated with”, when you room with someone you do not know you open yourself up to many new social opportunities. Another good reason to room with someone you do not know as opposed to one of your good friends is that you are more likely to branch out and do your own thing and experience more things for yourself. In my opinion rooming with someone you don’t know is definitely the way to go freshman year, I noticed that many of my high school friends actually ended up ruining their lifelong friendships by choosing to share a dorm with each other.
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When it comes to roommate matching as a freshman I am of two minds. Apart of me thinks that it is good t room with somebody/people you may not know because like the article said it does give you an opportunity to meet new and possibly different people. However, the larger part of me feels it is better to have a say in who you live with for your freshman year of college. Living with a roommate that you know and are familiar with can help the transition to college. Living with a stranger could be awkward, also there is the possibility that you and your roommate end up not getting a long at all, living in an environment full of tension can lead to no good and can be a large distraction. I personally believe that you can live with someone you have mown prior to college and still branch out and meet other people, as can your roommate and that is how a larger network happens. Myself and my two best friends came to college together and although we are still as close as ever we have acquired more friends and have made them friends, so it is not as if you have to room with a stranger in order to have better networking opportunities or to be exposed to something different. Your whole college experience will be exposing you to something different. Everybody is different though, and being that college freshman they should be able to make responsible a decision about rooming with a stranger or someone they know.
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Patrick makes an interesting point about the networking system. Expanding one’s friend group is definitely a good thing. However, I think that one can do this without necessarily rooming with a stranger. I am currently rooming with my best friend from my hometown, and we have both made new friends. In my experience rooming with someone you know does not prevent you from being social and having a good experience in college. Instead, it allows to be comfortable with the person you’re sharing a room with and still enables you to make new friends.
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I would have to agree with the commentors above. As Breanne said, living with a random roommate “forces you to get out of your comfort zone” and helps to “create a different friend circle”. A lot of my high school friends came to the same university as I did but I decided to have a random roommate my freshman year. I’m really glad I did that because it forced me to break down my boundaries. I learned about my roommate’s background and we were able to rely on each other if we needed anything. We also met each other’s friends and that helped me gain the social skills to interact with different individuals. I was able to network with more of the student body because I would go to club meetings and campus events that they were involved in and vice versa. It helped me obtain a greater world-view and those experiences helped shape who I have become or am becoming as an adult. I also do know that there can be issues with living with a random if one or both are not understanding of each other but the university/college should have means to fix the problem. One of my friends did not like her living situation from her first semester so she transferred to a different dorm her second semester. She absolutely loved it and still keeps in touch with her old suite mates and roommate. In fact, they’re all on the same indoor soccer team! Living with a random person is definitely a quintessential part of the college experience. What better way to learn something about yourself and others than to actually live and become friends with a complete stranger?
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As an only child, I was actually excited about the idea of having a roommate my first year of college. I wondered how we were going to share things and balance out schedule so we can hang out. However, it was different than what I expected, especially if you are used to living in a room alone. Forcing others to like one another just because they are roomed together is not a good idea. Roommates should be matched based on personality, likes and dislikes. It is basically and interview process, kind of how people choose friends. Although, it is good to have a roommate that has experienced different things than you. This way you get to learn about different aspects of life and living based upon someone different than you.
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I agree with Sidney Morris on every point she makes, but she does overlook some things. First of all, I have not come across a university that does not allow students to request specific roommates, meaning that students always have the choice to choose. Second, the point Altman was trying to make is that it would be more beneficial to a college student to live with a random roommate because in the real world you are exposed to many different types of people, and whether you are able to get along with people in society depends (to a degree) on your ability to adapt to how someone else lives and acts. Altman thinks that there is no better place to gain experience on unexpected interactions with strangers than within the controlled setting of a college dorm/apartment.
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Although I agree with Samuel that it’s important to have a roommate during freshmen year, I still believe there are some possible draw backs to having a randomly selected roommate.The writer gives good examples on why she thinks freshmen should get randomly picked roommates. She concedes that this will help young people learn how to deal with different types of people. This is a very important skill to have. However, I feel that random matching can sometimes prove very bad for one if not both of the people. I don’t believe everyone can live together and there are many horror story to prove this point.
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I agree with Breanne. A stranger as a roommate helps people learn and grow up. Additionally, it exposes a person to different views and ways of life. A person does not have to get a polar opposite like Altman talked about. Someone from a different city or state could demonstrate different viewpoints and ways to live.
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1-In the article Anna shares opposing views of other students, and her views also. She states whether roommates should be mutually chosen or randomly selected. Her attitude towards her points, aren’t harsh or rude. she wants students to be friendly and want them to open up to others. in fact that’s the point of attending college, to meet new people and learn how to interact with them.Her attitude is more reasonable, because she states that meeting new people is not only good for college but good for future references, for example if you get a new job, you’re gonna have to work with people you do not know, therefore you’re going to have to communicate with them.
2- No her argument would have not strengthen because not everyone has the same view point on roommates, most people enjoy opening up to new people and others are different towards opening up to others.
3-If I were to look for a roommate on craigslist, I would look for if the person in interested in soccer, if they are then we will become best friends. ethnicity is not a big issue to me. I’ve learned that we are all the same and bleed the same. It doesn’t take a lot out of me to be friendly and open up to someone I just met, in fact its the best way to get someone’s trust.
4- I recently had the experience of living with a roommate that I didn’t know much about, except the fact that we both played soccer. When we first met, we stayed up all night opening up to each other and getting to know about each others favorite players and interest. After a month or so, I already grew tired of him because all he wanted to do was drink every single night. I was okay with it for a good period of time but it was just a constant drinking every night that would get annoying and I didn’t wanna be a part of that. Although he was a good roomate
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1) Altman introduces the opposite arguments reasonable and respectful, trying to be as objective as possible. The way Altman treats the opposing views gives more value to the text enhancing at the same time her own arguments. 2) It would be a good idea to include interviews with current dorm residents because that would give the reader a better impression of how it is living with a stranger and how that roommate can influence you both, in a good and a bad way. 3) If I had to look for a roommate I would look for qualities such as housekeeping and shared interests, but I would not care about the ethnicity or the social class. 4) From my point of view, rooming with a stranger is a valuable experience. I can say from my own experience that rooming with a stranger has changed some of my ways of thinking. I have learned something from each of my recent roommates, and I have never had any problem with any of them. So I encourage the students to not be afraid of rooming with a stranger because it is a valuable experience that will improve your college life.
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