It’s 1:30 a.m. and you’re fast asleep. You hear the door open and your roommate walks in making disruptive noises waking you up. Now you can’t fall back asleep, and will not be able to do so for the next hour. Your roommate continues to make loud noises stumbling around the room.
The next morning you doze off during important lectures and labs, which affects your grade. Whenever you confront your roommate on the subject, the roommate denies it and you lose more sleep. You tried to meet with the resident assistant (RA) of your hall to come up with a solution, but it’s not working. Now it’s time to take a more serious step and get rid of your roommate.
According to the Residential Life Handbook, if a problem occurs the residents, and the RA of your hall will meet to come up with a solution. In extreme cases, depending on available space, roommates may be moved, but the Director of Residential Life and Housing must approve this.
“An extreme case can be a multitude of things,” Melody Huff, Area Coordinator of Residential Life said. “[ If ] it’s just not working, they mediated, and can’t come to a common ground.” Conflicting lifestyles are usually the biggest problem between students living in the dorms.
“One is an early riser. One comes in late. Those type of things, pretty much different lifestyles, are pretty much the common thing,” Huff said.
Trying to change a person’s lifestyle can be futile. This is where students can actually make the effort to change their roommate.
“We try to discourage it [changing roommates],” Huff said, “but if there’s room, we can do that, and we will.”
While conflicts may occur, college is a learning experience, and the dorms are no exception to this.
“Part of the living on-campus experience is learning to live together,” Angela Nunez, Director of Residential Life and Housing said.
“If it is just not working out, the last resort is moving.”
Due to a lack of space, roommates are required to try to communicate with one another before resorting to moving.
“Communication is key, and if you are not communicating with your roommate, how are they going to know what they are doing is bothering you?” Nunez said.
The directors and staff of Residential Life encourage students to work together in order to make both students living experience an enjoyable one.
