"Rooming assignments bring out the worst in people." These were the words uttered to me as a scared little freshman in college nervous to figure out what my living arrangement would be for the following year. Little did I know that those words would ring truer than just about any other sentence I heard at college. Aside, of course, from the widely known, "Advertise free food and the college kids will come running."
Although the situation of deciding who would live where and with whom was a nightmare from start to finish for three out of my four years of college, each process taught me something that I never will forget, as did each yearly living situation. The roommates I lived with each year taught me valuable lessons for life, and lessons that every girl should know going into the college housing decision process.
When I first started college, I was thrown into a small dorm room with two beds and a stranger. Whenever I told people that I "went random," meaning I didn't choose my freshman roommate, the same look of horror popped up on every face and the sentence, "nothing good ever comes from a random roommate" soon followed.
I was pleasantly surprised that my random roommate situation worked out, and I learned that being paired up with someone you know next to nothing about is not necessarily a bad thing. If it weren't for my random rooming situation my freshman year of college, I would never have the group of friends and the support I have now.
However, being paired with a random person also taught me how to adapt. Sharing a small room with someone who you're not used to forces you to be aware of your surroundings, of other people, and to change your ways to accommodate for others. In other words, I learned to be considerate in a way that sharing a room with my sister never could have taught me.
From my freshman year to sophomore, I went from having one roommate and barely enough space to get ready in the morning, to three roommates and a two-bedroom, one bath apartment with a full kitchen. This was a whole new challenge in and of itself and brought up a whole new slew of lessons to be learned.
Living with more than one person brought on new dynamics that taught me that not everyone can be completely satisfied all the time, and no one can satisfy everyone. Whether you're buying groceries, cleaning the apartment, or building friendships and relationships, you can't please everyone, and I learned that that's ok.
Living in one apartment full of girls can be difficult, especially with hormones fluctuating weekly and very little space to escape to if need be. That being said, nothing is more eye opening that living in an apartment full of girls. The experience can teach you that people change and can change over a very short period of time, and living amongst that can teach you what kind of people you do and don't want in your life.
During your college years, some things become blatantly clear and one of those things is that surrounding yourself with people who are good to you and that you WANT to be good to back is so so important. Nothing is worse than being surrounded by people who either don't appreciate you or you don't vibe with, so sometimes you need to do what's best for you and take a step back.
Along with that, sometimes others make that same decision for themselves, and we have to be ok with that. Everyone makes their own decisions, and if someone takes a step out of your life, that is ultimately their own decision and they are most likely doing what is best for them.
During my junior year I lived with a student from overseas and I learned so much that I never could have learned from living with American students. From different lifestyles, cooking styles, and more, no roommate could have prepared me for living with someone with a completely different culture from my own.
While my experience wasn't positive in every aspect, I learned so much, especially about the views of others about the U.S., about other cultures, and about Islam and the Muslim lifestyle, which has always intrigued me. Living with someone whose life is so vastly different from my own opened my eyes to myself, my habits, and my country.
From all three of these school years I learned a lot, about myself, about others, and about how to do life and how to live with others. Living with people can be both positive and negative, but it's what you take from those experiences that expands your mind and allows for growth in your own life. I know I learned a lot from my past roommates, who knows what will be in store for me with my future roommates, both in and out of college.
