College involves a lot of sharing. From communal spaces like libraries or hall bathrooms, to giant lecture halls and study rooms, you are never alone in your college experience. Most universities take this concept into a more intimate setting and require on-campus students to share their dorm space with a roommate. Depending on one's personality type, this aspect of college life may either excite them or incite anxiety in regards to the expectations of sharing a small space for an entire school year.

Personally, I found this to be one of the most terrifying aspects of my incoming freshman year when I was college-bound. My issues with anxiety, numerous roommate horror stories echoing in my head and other factors had me incredibly worried about my home away from home that was to be shared with a complete stranger. Now as a sophomore with three different dorms and roommates under my belt, I have reason to believe that everything really does happen for a reason and that condensed, awkward living in a dorm doesn't have to be the norm.

At the start of freshman year, I lived in a high-rise dorm that somehow held about 1,000 freshman under the same 50 year-old roof. Months prior, my first roommate and I sort of matched up as a necessity when the housing deadline was approaching, knowing very little about the other besides our sleep schedules and music preferences.

At first, everything was great, but the 13x15 room's walls were closing in on us and we soon found out we weren't compatible to live together. Without going into detail, things got ugly and resulted in a tension-ridden, unpleasant living space for the both of us. It was undoubtedly the best move for us to live separately, so I put in a housing reassignment request and we went our separate ways. To this day, I still wish her the best and I wish we could've remained friends outside of that toxic dorm room.

My request was approved, I received an email with a room number and my roommate's email, and two days later I hauled my stuff about half a mile up the road and resettled myself. My new roommate was very cordial when we first spoke, and she had informed me that she was out of town for a few days, which seemed unusual given we were in the middle of the second semester of school. However, it was none of my business and I just let out a sigh of relief that I had a new home and a new start.

This wasn't exactly the case.To make a long story short, about a month after I moved in, my roommate informed me she would not be continuing school here and her stuff would be moved out the following week.

Once again, in my seemingly brief freshman career, I was met with a brand new set of "wish you well's" and "goodbye's." For the remainder of the year, a new roommate never moved in, and I was given the single room I had admittedly longed for the entire time. Sadly, it was not all it was cracked up to be.

While I had attained the privacy and solace that I craved in my previous experience of a too-close-for-comfort living situation, I found myself on the opposite end of the spectrum in a twisted dichotomy of self-discovery and college acclamation.

My months spent alone in that room weren't necessarily the happiest of my life, but I desperately wanted to evade a repetition of the year's start with my upcoming sophomore year and I looked into a single dorm. It didn't take me long to realize that singles are kind of like unicorns–majestic and pretty much unheard of–and that the school purposely accommodates its large student body with double room assignments.

I was then presented with the reality that I should prepare myself for a third roommate introduction and a new set of fears over what may be. When I registered for housing in the fall of my freshman year, I desperately wanted to be placed in the dorm that I would eventually be reassigned to a few months later.

After all was said and done, I couldn't think of anything I wanted less than to repeat my habits and see the same four walls. Without hesitation, I switched into a room on the complete opposite side of campus and never looked back, attempting to look forward and try my hand at successfully living with a roommate.

Present day, I am happy to say that as a college sophomore, I live in a beautiful, historic dorm on UNC's north campus, I am closer to classes, getting used to life with a hall-style bathroom, living with a roommate and loving every minute of it. No longer am I scared about sharing my space with someone, because maturing in your college experience and learning from your mistakes makes for the best living situation with yourself and your decisions.