""

Picking a roommate is a crucial and often stressful step for incoming first-year students. Credit: Lantern File Photo

After picking the right school, first-year students then move on to the dreaded task of picking the right roommate.

Unlike campus tours, testimonials and countless websites to look through for the right university, many students only have one basis for the latter decision: a Facebook or Instagram profile. Some students, like Miranda Baker—  a first-year in sport industry — said she wishes she spent more time with her roommate before formally deciding to live with her. 

“I highly recommend hanging out multiple times, having daily conversations and getting close to them,” Baker said. “Once people get comfortable, their true colors almost always show.” 

From experience in helping students through Ohio State’s Counseling and Consultation Service, Director of Outreach Harry Warner has the same advice. Though Warner said social media can be a great tool, many personality features cannot be communicated online.

“Social media increases our ability to connect quickly, but nothing is ever as effective as sitting down with a person and listening to understand each others’ perspectives,” Warner said. 

Cali Judge, a first-year in history, who had a negative roommate experience at her previous school before transferring to Ohio State, advised students seeking a roommate to trust their gut instinct. She said she knew from the first day that something about her roommate was off, but ignored that feeling. 

“Don’t be afraid to have tough conversations,” Judge said. 

But this can be difficult for some roommate pairings, as seen with Baker’s experience in her dorm living with three other roommates — two of whom she said have been great to live with, but a third who has caused some issues in the dorm. 

“The hardest part about living with [the roommate] has been the lack of communication,” Baker said. 

Baker said she and her roommates have relied too much on texting instead of face-to-face communication, but the few in-person conversations they had were just as ineffective at creating a change in her communication methods and led to unclear expectations. Even after bringing in a mediator, the discussion didn’t lead to changed behavior.

Next year, Baker plans to live alone to avoid the same problems.

“This experience has made me more picky with who I live with,” Baker said. 

Warner said situations like this can be avoided by creating an agreed-upon conflict resolution plan when you first begin living with someone. 

“Conflict is unavoidable, even among best friends,” Warner said. “Talk about how [you will] talk about things when [you] disagree.”

According to Warner, most of the roommate-related conflicts that Counseling and Consultation Service reports revolve around unmet expectations. Warner said this issue manifests in the form of messiness, unequal chore distribution, noise level, unwanted guests and more, which can be managed by communicating clear boundaries at the beginning of the year. 

“It is worth the initial discomfort or awkwardness of starting a conversation to have that open communication,” Warner said. 

If more help is needed beyond this, Ohio State offers “Let’s Talk” sessions to talk through conflict. These free drop-in meetings allow students to talk to trained counselors about their conflicts and brainstorm solutions. 

“[Let’s Talk] is perfect for an isolated situation that a person may need advice on,” Warner said.

Instead of losing hope after a bad roommate experience or trying to avoid making choices based on profiles, Warner said students can look within their social circles or ask their friends or acquaintances if they know someone looking for a roommate.

“The more you ask around your personal networks, the more likely an opportunity will pop up,” Warner said. 

And while it is important for students to value their instincts and avoid living with someone who makes them feel uncomfortable, it is important not to solely work on assumptions when trusting intuition, Warner said. 

“We can have a lot of assumptions based on very little information,” Warner said.