Advice for Living with a Roommate

Happy Monday! Welcome back to Diary of a Small-Town Girl! It’s really starting to feel like spring here (although we might get snow later this week…) and it’s hard to believe, but I only have 5 weeks left of my first year of college! With the end of my first year coming up, I’ve been thinking more about all the things that’ve changed since move-in day, and all the things I’ve learned. One of the major changes that I experienced moving to college was getting a roommate. There’s a lot to learn from living with a roommate, and while it’s fun, it can be challenging, especially at first. So today, here’s my advice for living with a roommate!

Advice for Living with a Roommate

1. Communication is Key

Starting with the big one right off the bat: communicate! While this one is definitely the most cliche on the list, it’s old advice because it’s good advice. Communicating with your roommate is the best way to make sure that you get along, respect each other, and create a routine that works for the both of you! My roommate and I have an agreement that we tell each other when we have friends in the room: for me, I really don’t like coming back to my room to people in my room when I didn’t know they were going to be there, so this is pretty important to me.

But also, communication isn’t just about the day-to-day details. You should also just talk to your roommate and ask about their day! Even if you aren’t best friends (more on that later!), it’s good to know about what’s going on in their life. While my roommate and I don’t talk super often, whenever we do, it’s always a good conversation. But no matter what you’re communicating about, communication is key.

2. Learn Your Roommate’s Schedule

Ok, this one needs a bit of explaining. One of the best things that I’ve done since coming to college is learn my roommate’s schedule. This is something that we talked about even before move-in, but schedules definitely change throughout the year. Learning my roommate’s schedule helps me figure out when I want to be in the room, what she has going on, and allows us to work around each other better.

For example, I wake up earlier in the morning than my roommate does on most days. This means that I’m usually out of the room before she’s awake, which works well for both of us because we aren’t trying to get ready for the day on top of each other. This works well for both of us and makes sure that there isn’t any frustration in the mornings.

3. Try to Create Times for Being in the Room by Yourself (And do the Same for Your Roommate!)

This is one of the most important things that I’ve learned in the last few months. For me, alone time is really important, and alone time on a college campus is pretty hard to come by. My dorm is one of the few places that I can chill out and be truly by myself. For me, I usually like to spend Sunday afternoons in my room, and don’t spend a lot of time there any other day. My roommate respects this, and usually does homework out of the room on Sundays.

However, it’s also important to respect this for your roommate too. She tends to spend mornings in our room, especially on the weekends. Since that is her alone time, I am out of the room in the mornings, and even on the weekends, I try to be out of the room by the time she’s awake. While this doesn’t always work for various reasons, we respect each other’s need for alone time and it’s one of the best things we’ve worked out.

4. Create Privacy Within the Room

Kind of going off of the last tip, creating privacy in our room is something that we’ve been able to do. While I know this isn’t for everyone, and some people prefer to maximize the amount of space there is in the room, for us, this works well. For us, this means having our desks back-to-back with the bookshelves on top, so when we’re both sitting at them, I can’t see her at all. This also gives a little more space when we’re sleeping, because we can’t see each other at all. While this isn’t for everyone, it’s something that’s worked really well for us.

5. You Don’t Have to Be Best Friends

Another cliche tip, but it’s one that I definitely ignored when I was first moving into college. My roommate and I are not best friends. In fact, we don’t even hang out together at all, other than when we’re in the room. And for me, that’s actually worked pretty well. It definitely made me a little insecure at first, because I do know some people who are really close to their roommates. But now, I’ve realized that this works better for me, and we both have plenty of friends that we hang out with. So, while you definitely can be, you don’t have to be best friends with your roommate, as long as you communicate and get along to the best of your abilities.

Thanks for Reading!

Alright, well this is advice for living with a roommate! It’s definitely one of the biggest learning curves from college, but I’m really glad that I’ve learned all this. If you’re going to college soon, let me know what you’re most excited about in the comments! And if you’re already in college or graduated, share your best advice for living with a roommate. As always, thank you so much for following along on this journey! See you next week!

Check out more college advice posts from Diary of a Small-Town Girl!