5 Tips to Getting Along With Your Roommate

5 Tips to Getting Along With Your Roommate
By Brian Burnsed
Posted August 13, 2010
U.S.News & World Report

One of the most important factors in your success as a college freshman is your rapport with your roommate. College officials say that while incoming freshmen often worry about tackling 15-page papers or getting invited to the best parties, avoiding conflict with a roommate is integral to a student's happiness in their first months on campus.
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Many schools go to great lengths to help students find a roommate with whom they will be compatible. St. Catherine University, in St. Paul, Minn., for instance, has matching software dubbed "roommate finder" that is used to pair students with similar preferences and interests. Other schools, like Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, in Needham, Mass., ask simple questions (Are you a morning or night person? How neat are you? Do you study while listening to music?) to attempt to find suitable matches. Ultimately, however, it doesn't matter how many common interests or habits you and your roommate might share. If you're unwilling to take the necessary steps to communicate, conflict will arise when stress levels spike. You don't have to be best friends with your roommate, but follow these five rules laid out by college housing officials to, at the very least, make the relationship cordial and conflict free.

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