One of the biggest adjustments of coming to college is sharing a room with another person. Universities put two people who are used to having their own space in the same 15x15 room and assume that everything will be fine. While this allows you to get close to another, sometimes random, person in a very short amount of time, it also can bring up some hardships. Here are some of those struggles:
1. Getting Ready in the Morning.
When sharing a room, getting ready in the morning could be one of the most challenging parts of the day. Running around the room on your tip toes with only the light from the flash of your phone seems like more and more of a challenge as the semester goes on and you begin waking up later and later for your classes.
2. Having Alone Time.
If your dorm only consists of the one room for you and your roommate, having time to yourself seems almost impossible. The room is as much theirs as it is yours, which means that they are allowed to come in whenever they want. Sometimes you just want to be alone and watch your videos online, and finding somewhere to do that could become a struggle.
3. Having Opposite Schedules.
Sometimes your roommate will need to go to bed relatively early so they're not tired for their 8 am the next morning. At the same time, you are in your bed struggling to write a paper or study for an exam with the lights on so that they can get to bed.
4. Having Friends Over.
Related to the last point, if you have friends over and your roommate needs to go to bed, so do your friends. Because you both share such as small living space, there is no way that you and your friends can hang out while your roommate is asleep 10 feet over. This causes the need for a lot of compromising.
5. Making Phone Calls.
If you are anything like me, you like making phone calls when you're alone. I hate forcing other people to listen to me talk on the phone, which means that I can only do it when the room is empty. If you're sharing just one room with another person, it becomes a strategy game on whether or not you can call your parents at that time.
