Incoming freshmen across the country rush to their computers at a designated time and date, fingers anxiously clicking the mouse to find the answer to one of the biggest questions freshman year holds:

Who’s my roommate?

Syracuse University students have the option of choosing another person they’d like to room with, but if a student does not designate someone, a roommate is randomly assigned.

Kelly Rodoski, communications manager for SU News Services, said in an email that the roommate process works well and that the university has not received feedback from students about the system not working.

Before implementing the current system, SU researched how other schools assign roommates. While many other schools ask students to fill out in-depth surveys about their living habits, these surveys are not always accurate. The answers provided to the survey questions are often based on a student’s high school experience and aren’t good predictors of college habits. Sometimes parents fill out the survey instead of students, too, Rodoski said.

Assigning roommates randomly also gives students the chance to meet people who are different from them and whom they otherwise might not have met, Rodoski said.

The random roommate process has been successful, and many students who are randomly assigned as roommates choose to room together again the next year. While some random roommate assignments do not work out, this can also happen with roommates who choose each other, Rodoski said.

Students who prefer to select their roommate, rather than have one randomly assigned, often find each other through social media sites like Facebook or websites such as RoomSurf.

RoomSurf helps students find roommates by creating a profile and taking a roommate survey. The student is then matched with other students from the same school on RoomSurf by a compatibility percentage.

Jocelyn Delaney, a sophomore magazine journalism and Spanish major, found her freshman year roommate on Facebook, and the two then used RoomSurf to see if they would be compatible as roommates.

While her roommate experience wasn’t perfect, the two were able to work through many of their issues because they were good friends.

“Although I used RoomSurf a good amount for searching for potential roommates, I think it is more important to find a good friend first because it is easier to communicate with each other if there are any problems,” Delaney said in an email.

Alex Fernandez and Kris Murray, both sophomores, were randomly assigned as roommates freshman year and are rooming together again this year.

Their experience was a good one and Fernandez, an art and philosophy major, said in an email that he doesn’t think the roommate process can be improved much.

“It takes a while to figure out whether you really want to be roommates with someone or not, and the only real test of it I can think of is to actually live with them,” Fernandez said.

Murray, a biochemistry major, said in an email that he agrees, and the random roommate process is a part of the college experience.

“There’s always a chance that you won’t get along with your roommate,” Murray said. “I think a big part of growing up is learning how to deal with and work with people you don’t really like.”

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Published on August 21, 2012 at 9:08 pm

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