I am a current junior here at Bloom and I still live with my freshman year roommate from the dorms. For many people this may be the same case, but it is a lot more common to pick a roommate freshman year that turns out to be a horrible match.

The option to choose a roommate by random is popular because it saves you the anxiety of having to socialize with other people and having the fear of possible rejection. Avoiding these problems may be a plus, but I think the anxiety of being paired to live with anyone before discussing any differences or similarities is more of a risk.

After speaking to multiple people who chose to go random, their main reasoning behind their decision is because they felt they are the type of person who can get along with anyone easily. While that may be true, that doesn’t mean you can get dressed around, sleep across from, and basically be around the same person for majority of your day for 2 semesters.

A popular way to find someone to be your roommate for Bloomsburg University is to start by joining the closed Facebook group named after your year of graduation. For example, mine is called “Bloomsburg University Class of 2021.” Joining the page will give you connections with other freshman and people starting at Bloomsburg the same time you are. The best time to join the page is after you’ve received your acceptance letter into the school, to get updated on things as soon as possible.

The next step in this process is two possible decisions. You can skim through the page and see who has posts reach out to you the most and message them or you can come up with a post explaining a little bit about youself and wait for people to message you. 

I made a post early in the Facebook page to find a roommate. I included a short bio and pictures of myself. Finding a roommate was a big ordeal between my high school friends and I at the time and we were all eager to find someone to live with.

I remember I got along well with the first person I messaged about being potential roommates. We kept an on-going and interesting conversation getting to know each-other for about a week before she asked me if I wanted to be her roommate. The timing had not even been summer yet and she was the first person I talked to, so I had my doubts about the other people I could possibly room with. 

I declined her offer nicely and explained that I think its too early to decide on something so big. I realized that I shouldn’t feel pressured to live with someone just because I had the guilt of saying no.

A couple months had gone by and I decided to give finding a roommate a second chance. This time I decided I was going to message people. I scrolled through the posts and messaged a few girls. I had to bite my pride on the girls who ignored my messages and accept I wasn’t someone they wanted to live with. 

One of the girls messaged me back and I remembered her post said something about her being too sarcastic. I thought that post was perfect because that is a large characteristic trait I carried too. We hit it off almost immediately and found out we had a lot more in common. I felt comfortable asking her questions like, “Do you snore?”, “Do you like to watch cartoons?”, “Do you drink or smoke or both?”

The second girl I messaged with ended up being my roommate of 3 years, soon to be 4, and best friend. This isn’t going to be the case for everyone and I’m not saying you must be best friends with your roommates, but it is important to live with people you are comfortable with and can trust. The classes we take give us enough stress as is, we don’t need the people we surround ourselves with to add to it.