BY JACQUELINE HAMBRICK | Guest Contributor | It was pitch black when I heard the big bang. Half awake, I looked around and saw nothing. I glanced at my phone to see the clock read 3:45 A.M. After realizing the time, I closed my eyes still not knowing what the noise was and attempted to sleep. I then heard my roommate start to vomit.
Good morning.
When coming to college I was more than eager to meet who I would be living with for the next year of my life. I had coincidentally met her at orientation and I thought that it would work out really well. We communicated a few times before the school year had started and we had similar views on living situations and attitudes and it seemed perfect.
Although, I was still pretty nervous after hearing older friends talk about their roommate horror stories. Being that I had never shared anything as an only child, I was open to this new experience and excited that in a way this would give me an “arranged” new best friend.
In a sample taken by George Mason University, it was stated that 50.1 percent of women and 44.1 percent of men had conflicts with their roommates. All of these students had problems with their roommates, but were they able to benefit from these experiences in the long run is what I started asking myself.
In another study done by George Mason University, it was stated that students had shown an increase in communication skills when dealing with their roommates and others in their lives. It also stated that having a roommate had a positive effect on psychological adjustment when entering college. Overall, having roommates helped these students in the long run of their college careers and lives after.
My roommate was coming back from a sorority event off campus. She normally would not come back to the room if she thought she was too drunk, but this time, her friends who agreed to let her sleep in their room ended up leaving her at this party. So, she came in stumbling at 3:45 A.M., laying on the floor vomiting and assuring me she was okay and did not need a garbage can or to go to the bathroom.
All of this was pretty bad but to top it off, I had class from 8 A.M. to 6 P.M. the following day. Which I ended up only going to one class and skipping the others since I had only gotten three hours of sleep and was starting to feel sick because of this myself.
Yet bad roommates are having a positive effect. Since so many have had the same issues there are now “match making” websites for students to match with the right kind of roommate and not have these issues in the future.
In all, having a roommate teaches you life lessons. Those include, patience, sharing, being considerate of others’ time and property, learning how to live with someone in a close environment, and communication. It also helps you learn more about yourself, such as if you don’t like to share, or even getting to hear about your own sleeping habits such as sleep talking in the middle of the night.
Though my roommate can be a pain, she has taught me much about myself and what it is like to live with another person. So if there is a next time that I’m woken up at 3:45 A.M. by her, I will remember that this will help me in the long run in some way.