Talking with Your College Roommate: Issues to Address to Avoid Conflicts

Whether this is your first semester at college or your last, there are some things you should discuss with your roommate from the start of living in the dorm to avoid unnecessary conflicts at a later time. Sometimes you may think that you don't need to address a problem until it arises but my view on this is that if you can avoid it all together, do it.

The first two things you should address are parties and alcohol in the room. Find out what your roommate's opinions are on these topics and compare them with yours. If you both like having parties in the room, you shouldn't have many problems; if you like to party and your roommate doesn't, or vice versa, you will have some compromising to do. You may want to suggest that you will only have parties on the weekends, or when your roommate has something else to do and won't be there. If you have a party while your roommate is gone, make sure they know you're having one, no one vandalizes their stuff, and that you clean up the entire mess.

Another topic to discuss with your roommate is your study schedule. If you're college is like mine, they ask you ahead of time if you prefer to study during the day or night and try to pair you with someone compatible, but if not, make sure you work this out to avoid problems. If your roommate likes to study during the day but you don't, work something out, either you can find things to do outside of the room to prevent distractions, or your roommate might want to go to the library instead. Same goes for nighttime studiers, if one roommate wants to study at night and the other wants to watch television and hang out with friends, make a compromise, someone can find another place to go but make sure you aren't telling your roommate to leave. You should always discuss issues in a calm way and make sure everyone agrees on the final outcome.

The last two points you should address with your new roommate from the start is how you each feel about sharing, whether it be clothes or leftover food in the refrigerator, make sure each of you knows the others opinions on this. Decide if you're okay with sharing clothes or not and if so, does your roommate have to ask first? Do you expect them to wash them or just put them in your dirty clothes basket? As far as the food goes, if you have a refrigerator in the room, decide if you want separate shelves for your food or if everything is free game or if you want to label your food.

These may seem like simple problems that can be addressed whenever it becomes an issue but when you're living in close quarters such as a dorm room, little things have a tendency of building up. Everyone will be better off if you know where each other stands on these matters so just sit down and have a conversation now to prevent problems later.