How To Live With Your Roommate

Living with Others: A Challenge
On Campus Living: A Different Dynamic
Understanding Differences
Not Getting Along with Your Roomate?

Roommates can be one of the best and worst of college experiences. Living with a roommate helps accommodate college students in making the transition from home to the outside world. It is the step in-between home and the establishment of your own family.

The influence of roommates on one another is great. Your roommate will likely:

• Challenge your confidence
• Encourage you to become more tolerant
• Facilitate changes in your attitudes about things

How can you enhance the positive influence you and your roommate have on each other?

1. At the very beginning of your relationship - inventory your habits and preferences: smoking or non-smoking, tidy or casual, stay up late or get up early, punk rock or classical jazz, study alone or with others, etc.
2. Work out strategies of compromise for your differences.
3. When you are irritated (or pleased) with your roommate express it directly and immediately. Don't store up resentments and explode when he/he commits a minor offense. Don't discuss your roommate problems with others when you have not discussed them with your roommate.
4. Recognize that there are at least two sides to every story. Hear your roommate out. Try to see things from his/her perspective rather than jumping to conclusions.
5. Most problems can be resolved or alleviated. If you can't work out the situation with your roommate and you've actually tried doing so instead of assuming that it can't be done - ask assistance from someone who will be objective, such as a mutual friend, who is not directly affected by the situation, or a resident advisor.

Living with a roommate can be an excellent experience in learning more about yourself and about how to communicate and relate effectively to others. Knowing how to assert yourself and how to empathize with others are valuable skills in all relationships - family, social, school, and work.

*Implementing a Student Development Model in Residence Halls, M. Lee Upcraft (Ed.) Pennsylvania State University 1976

Living With Others: A Challenge

Living on campus is very different from living with your immediate family. You may not know your roommates very well. You may come from different parts of the country, or different parts of the world. Your roommates may have different cultures, different religions, different habits, different lifestyles, and different customs. While these new experiences may initially seem a little strange or intimidating to you, they may also offer unique opportunities for greater understanding of others, more effective ways of communicating, and new avenues for personal growth.

On Campus Living: A Different Dynamic

Growing up, most of us lived with people very much like us: our families. After many years of living together, we adapted to habits of our family members, even if they were different than our own habits. After all, these people were our families. We had to get along with each other.

Living on campus offers a different social dynamic. The people you live with now are, most likely, not the people you will be living with for the rest of your life. While some students do develop lifelong relationships with their college roommates, others live with the same person or persons for years, and barely know them.

Although college living experiences are temporary, they offer students many different avenues for personal growth and understanding, and for building interpersonal skills that will help them build relationships after their college years have passed.

Understanding Differences

Living with persons who have different habits and customs can be an educational experience. Sharing differences with one another can lay the foundation for greater understanding of different religions, cultures, lifestyles, customs, and traditions. The workforce of the new millennium will demand a greater understanding of the diversity of lifestyles, customs, and ways of communicating, because technology has made it easier to link persons and companies across the world, with nothing more than a personal computer. Seen in this context, living with persons who have different customs and lifestyles can offer students practical preparation for the workforce of tomorrow.

Not Getting Along With Your Roommates?

Here are some things you might try.

Talk To Them Yourself

This answer may seem a bit too easy, but surprisingly, it is often an option that people avoid. It is easy to let problems go, until they seem so large that talking about them is intimidating. While it may be hard to approach your roommate if he/she is doing something that bothers you, it will usually help move the problem toward resolution. On the other hand, if you don't tell your roommate that something is bothering you, he or she may not know that you are bothered, and might continue to do the thing that bothers you. Even worse, if you seem annoyed at the behavior, he or she may misread this annoyance as animosity toward him/her. When this happens, it becomes very difficult to re-open the lines of communication.

Mediation

Mediation services are usually offered through your school's Residence Life staff. Mediation is a process where all parties involved in a dispute agree to meet with a third party, who listens to all sides of the dispute, and attempts to help the parties reach an agreement among themselves. To arrange a mediation, see your Resident Assistant or call the Office of Residence Life.

Ground rules for the discussion are agreed upon at the beginning of the mediation, and each party is allowed to state his/her side of the dispute, without being interrupted. Then the parties suggest possible solutions to the dispute. The mediator may ask questions of the parties during the mediation, to help them suggest alternatives. Mediation is typically a give-and-take type of situation. Each party usually must make some type of concession to another party, in order for a solution to be achieved.

The process does not always give each party a perfect solution. The emphasis is on peaceful compromise. If an agreement is made, it is usually put in writing, and signed by the parties involved, and the mediator signs as a witness. The original copy of the agreement is generally kept on file with the mediator for the term the disputing parties live together. The agreement is binding among the parties, and the terms must be followed by all the parties. Should a party violate the agreement, he or she would be asked to meet with the Resident Assistant, Area Coordinator, or another appropriate member of the Residence Life staff. If the other parties wish, another mediation can be held. The staff member would also discuss room change options with the person, if the problem could not be resolved.

The Mediation Process:

The mediator will:

1. Help the parties set ground rules for the discussion. Some typical examples:
1. Each party will listen without interrupting the other person.
2. No name calling.
3. Each person will "own" his or her own statements and feelings.
4. Time limits on each person's "turn." The mediator should also ask each party if he/she has other possible ground rules or conditions for discussing the situation.
2. Allow each party uninterrupted time to state what he/she sees as the main problems or issues to be worked out.
3. Ask each party to state possible solutions.
4. Help the parties agree on some possible solutions, by re-iterating what has been said, suggesting possible compromises, and trying to help generate other alternative solutions.
5. The mediator should help the parties put the agreement in writing, have the parties sign, and then sign it as a witness. Each party should receive a copy of the written agreement, and the mediator should keep a copy on file for future reference.
6. The mediator should periodically follow up with the parties to see how things are going, and help the parties address any concerns that arise.
7. The results of the mediation should be kept confidential, between the parties and the mediator. (At some times, the results of the mediation may need to be shared with the mediator's immediate supervisor, but this will depend on the nature of the situation, and your university's policies. In many cases, this is only necessary in situations where a person may be in danger or when serious breaches of University Policy or the law have occurred.)

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