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TAYLOR JOHNSTON
05.25.17
Incoming Ohio University students will have to adjust to living away from home and sharing a room with a new face when they head to campus in the fall.
While most students live on campus their first two years at OU, some have to scramble to find people they might not know to live with. It can be challenging to adjust to living with someone else.
Kyle Weese, a rising sophomore studying management information systems, said the best way to get along with a roommate is to be yourself.
“Be open and be yourself,” Weese said. “Changing yourself definitely doesn’t help anything.”
Along with being yourself, Weese suggests always being clean. The Huffington Post wrote an article about roommate problems that are worth the argument and problems that aren’t. Weese, however, thinks cleanliness is always needed.
“The main qualities I look for in a roommate are respect and cleanliness,” Weese said.
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Thomas Hayes, a rising junior studying sport management, also believes cleanliness is important.
“Not cleaning up their mess is probably the worst thing a roommate could do,” Hayes said.
Other than keeping the room clean, being able to communicate clearly is important to avoid any roommate issues, Hayes said. Being passive aggressive instead of openly communicating can cause many problems.
Besides being clean, roommates should keep their guests to a minimum, Emily Perkins, a rising sophomore studying environmental health sciences, said.
“If they had people over all of the time or brought guys back all of the time that would be pretty annoying,” Perkins said.
Perkins is living in a quad next year, and she thinks the room could get too crowded if her roommates brought guests over often.
One of the other key things roommates should do to stay friends and get along is to be “down-to-earth,” Hayes said.
“I’d say that I look for a roommate to have similar interests as me,” Hayes said.
OU’s Housing and Residence Life offers an online service where students can make a profile and get in contact with others who match up with their interests. Students can also take the option of changing rooms if needed.
Along with the option to change rooms, students have the opportunity to apply for a specialized living experience, which includes gender neutral housing, halls for first-generation students and quiet study halls.
Weese believes there is no shame in wanting or needing to switch rooms.
“Sometimes people just aren’t compatible,” Weese said.
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This story is part of a series of specially designed stories that represents some of the best journalism The Post has to offer. Check out the rest of the special projects here.