How to Be a Considerate College Roommate

College brings about a wealth of new experiences. Among these experiences is living with a strange roommate or roommates for the first time. There is an adjustment period each time you get a new roommate as the two of you learn about each other and begin to accommodate each other's needs and schedules. Remember that it's not all up to your roommate to make the living situation a good one. There are some things you can both do to make the experience pleasant, or at least manageable.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Make a set of ground rules. Determine bathroom schedules, significant other policies, whether or not food or other resources may be shared, and an acceptable limitation on volume for music or television. Include ways to deal with violations of the ground rules, perhaps involving a third party like a resident adviser.
2. Be considerate. Do not play loud music or watch loud television shows late at night. Respect your roommate's requests to turn the volume down at other times of the day as well if they have a legitimate reason (studying, writing an essay) for asking.
3. Help each other out. Most times you will want to study in your own room, but if re-locating to a computer lab, library or other quiet place will better the situation for both you and your roommate, you might try that as a solution.
4. Respect your roommate's right to sleep. If you return home very late and your roommate is already in bed, try to make as little noise as possible. Do not turn on bright lights if it is not necessary to do so.
5. Think ahead. If you have a tendency to oversleep or turn off your alarm multiple times, keep your roommate in mind as you set your alarm for the next day. If you wake up before your roommate, respect their right to remain sleeping. This means turning your alarm off in a timely fashion, or not hitting snooze so much that your roommate must be awake as well by the time you finally decide to get up.
6. Practice discretion. If you overhear your roommate talking about a personal problem, or she shares it with you, do not gossip and share it with everyone. Likewise, do not overwhelm your roommate with your own personal life. This extends to romantic relationships. Try to keep romantic or sexual encounters discreet and come up with a system for letting each other know when it is not safe to enter the room.
7. Discuss any problems you might have with your roommate. Do not yell or make insults. Quite often you may be able to come to some agreement that will address your problems.

Tips & Warnings

• View the situation with a level head. It's easy to immediately blame your roommate for any difficulties, but remember that the two of you should work as a team to solve problems. It may often be an issue of miscommunication.
• If your relationship with your roommate seems non-fixable, explore other living arrangements.
• Do not resort to violence or tricks to "get revenge" on a roommate you do not like. These will not help the situation and could potentially put you in legal trouble.