Campus Life

Roommate dynamics: What should I do?

Ishan shares three tips to maintain healthy roommate relationships.

October 24, 2024 By Ishan Arora

YouAlberta is written by students for students.

Ishan (he/him) is a fourth-year Finance student at the University of Alberta. He originates from Bhopal, a beautiful city in India known as the city of lakes. He has studied at eight schools and has lived in ten cities. Ishan loves travelling, meeting new people and experiencing different cultures. He is big on sports and enjoys playing soccer, squash, basketball, swimming and running half-marathons. His creative side includes writing poems and playing guitar when missing home. Ishan enjoys public speaking and strives to become a visiting lecturer to teach at all of the world's best universities, including Oxford, U of A, London School of Business and the Kyoto University in Japan.

Midterm season is in full swing. You have back-to-back assignments due this week and the lectures on price elasticity of demand couldn’t make it any worse. You decide to take a short break from studying and just when you are about to enter the kitchen, you sense a peculiar smell of trash. You say to yourself, “Oh no! My roommate didn’t clear the trash once again this week!” Sound familiar? Well, don’t worry anymore! Here are three tips to maintain cordial relationships with your roommates while acing all your midterms and exams!

Keep it simple & easy

When dealing with roommate responsibilities and house rules, we often tend to overcomplicate the plan and weekly schedules. I spent three years living on campus (in HUB Mall residence) while being assigned to random roommates in a 4-bedroom apartment. In my experience, making a schedule, let alone a detailed one, is similar to building a gym routine for the coming week — only to snooze through your alarms as you dash to your 8 a.m. lectures! More often than not, it doesn’t work! Try and keep it simple. Assign basic weekly/monthly responsibilities, like cleaning the kitchen and clearing the trash, rather than building out a day-to-day schedule for each and every chore. Remember, the less someone reminds you of your responsibilities, the more likely you are to complete the tasks on time and take accountability for the same.

Think twice before rooming with your best friend

So, you want to be roommates with your friends? Well, I advise you to think again. According to Buzzfeed, “Good friends do not always make good roommates.” Enjoying someone’s company and spending time with them is drastically different than sharing an apartment and your personal living space with the same person. I benefited from taking on the chance of rooming with students randomly assigned by U of A Residence Services. Looking back, this was one of the best decisions of my dorm life. We respected each other’s privacy, the apartment was clean the majority of the time and we had a relatively peaceful environment past midnight. We had no hesitation in asking each other to clean or do house chores since we were roommates first (before becoming friends as a result of rooming together).

You can always switch!

U of A Residence Services offers you the option to switch your room for a fee of $50 should you choose to. While there is no guarantee that a vacant room will be available in your preferred residence, it gives you the assurance that you can move into a different unit on campus if you are facing issues with your current roommate(s). It also provides you with the opportunity to take the chance, meet new people and – who knows – you might end up being best friends with your roommate! I have many friends who had great experiences with their roommates and decided to continue rooming with the same person.

There you have it – three quick tips for maintaining a healthy environment in your apartment/dorm while focusing on more important things…like the demand and supply graph from your ECON 101 lecture!

Good luck on your midterms (and roommate conversations)!