If you have never shared a room with a sibling while growing up, a roommate during your first semester of college will be a whole new experience. All of the sudden, you lose control over when you turn the lights in the room on and off, what type of music you play, and how clean or messy you like your room. 

Across the student population, most students have very different roommate experiences. I think some students show up to their dorm the first day like Mike Wasowski in Monsters University, “Ok, here we go. Your lifelong best friend is right behind this door.” [enter Randy Boggs the scaring major] This mindset might be expecting a bit much… especially if you were matched up randomly. 

I would definitely avoid showing up the first day expecting to have a hard time with your roommate because if you think you aren’t going to like your roommate when you get there, you probably still won’t a few weeks into the semester. 

I would personally advocate for being friendly with your roommate, but also not expecting to be total BFF’s. An interesting dynamic that I know a few of my friends have developed with their roommates is what I call the “Functional roommate agreement” In this scenario neither of the roommates are really friends with each other, but they get along well being roommates together because both respect each other’s space. It’s not hard to be this type of roommate, you just leave the light off when your roommate is sleeping and avoid being too noisy when they are in the room so they can sleep, do work, or watch YouTube and TikTok with their headphones- really whatever. 

One philosophy I’ve taken on being a roommate is if I take the trash out more than him, he can never be upset at me for not pulling my own weight. Something I wish my roommate and I did more was get a vacuum from the commons desk to clean our rug, but I have been too lazy to drag a vacuum from the commons and back.

Personally, I’m not really friends with my roommate, but we get along great, and I feel like we have a very good roommate relationship. In some cases, it is better to not be great friends with your roommate because then the dorm can actually be a study area where you can get work done. 

If you don’t like your roommate, Penn State always offers a fishbowl at the beginning of the year where you can switch your roommate and living location if you don’t like where you’re at. I do feel like living with a roommate is part of the college experience, and if I were to do it again, I would not change a thing!