In my opinion and based on personal experience, the college admissions process can be described in many ways. Exciting, chaotic, stress-inducing, and confusing are a few words that come to my mind. There are many difficult choices that go into this excruciatingly long and tedious process. There is one however that sometimes gets overlooked, one that in my opinion, may be the most exciting and stressful part of the whole process: finding a college roommate.
Now you may be thinking: “Seriously?! Finding a roommate is the most stressful and lengthy part of the whole college admissions process?” To that question I would answer: absolutely. Having a good or bad roommate can make or break your first year of college. I have heard many stories about roommates that have gone on to become best, lifelong friends, and others about a crazy first year roommate that wrecked total havoc.
In today’s day and age, finding a roommate has become a more complicated process than ever. For starters, there are many ways to go about actually finding a roommate and I have tried each and every one of these. There are apps such as Zeemee and Bunkee in which you can take a personality test and receive a list of other students who have similar interests and tendencies. You could also always room with someone you already know. Friend, friend of a friend, etc. However, this method has pros and cons. Then there’s one of the more popular methods, the college class instagram. Every college seems to have a “class of blank blank bios”, where you submit photos of yourself and a short bio for others to see. Basically, tinder for desperate college kids trying to make friends.
The instagram approach is the method I am currently using, and it’s been…something to say the least. It is a good way to get a peek into the people who are going to your college, see their interests and majors, and hopefully find a roommate who is compatible with you. Honestly however, it can also be incredibly tiring and awkward. For girls at least, dming a bunch of girls “hi i think we have a lot in common and would love to chat” over and over then leading to what can be incredibly awkward conversation (or possibly getting ghosted), gets quite tiring. Specifically because of how much it feels like speed dating. Now there are pros, I personally have met some really sweet people through the instagram method who genuinely could become my future friends or roommates. It’s just crossing that threshold of awkwardness first.
There’s one final option that I havent talked about, and that’s letting your college pick you a random roomate. Like the methods I have gone over above, there are pros and cons. You could randomly get paired up with a lovely person who matches your vibe perfectly, or you could get paired up with a psychopath. You really just never know.
Take it from recent college graduate and Westminster faculty member Colton Albers, someone who went the random roomate method.
“My freshman year roommate was from Bentonville Arkansas. He was a random roommate but also a teammate. I completed a random student questionnaire and got paired up with him”.
When asked whether or not it was a pleasant experience with him, Albers had more than delightful things to say.
“Yea! We were very different but in a good way. He really liked to play Fortnite. I obviously wasn’t very quiet and was more social but yeah we were really good friends”.
This is a perfect example of someone who went random, and had a lovely experience with it.
The college process and college in general is an incredible experience that you will remember forever. I need to remind myself of this a lot as well. Don’t let this article stress you out, it’s honestly not that bad. Yes, finding a roommate can be difficult and awkward at times, but it all works out in the end, trust me.
