Unpopular Opinion: You can absolutely pick out your freshman roommate

Unpopular Opinion: It’s okay to pick out your roommate.

College advice websites love to tell incoming freshman that they should live with a random roommate their freshman year. The reason given is that living with a friend from home can ruin a friendship over petty roommate things, prevent you from branching out, and generally just rob you of the awful human experience of living with a stranger.

While I agree that you shouldn’t live with a friend from home for aforementioned branching out and friendship ending fiascos, that doesn’t mean that you can’t pick out your roommate.

When you pre-select a roommate you’re still going to have the strange transition of learning to live with someone you barely know, but it might be a little easier because you’re compatible people.

The best pre-selected roommate pairs I knew my freshman year came together in one of two ways  

1.    The Set-Up

These roommates did not know each other before, but had a mutual friend who had an inking they’d get along. They met for coffee/lunch, talked a bunch, and decided they were compatible roommate pairs.

Pros of this approach-
Pre-Screening: Your friend is not going to suggest you live with a crazy or someone who you aren’t compatible with.

Cons of this approach-

Branching Out: If you had a mutual friend, its possible there are other connections out there as well. Make sure to expand your friend pool more than your immediate geographic area.

2.     The Facebook

These roommate met online (gasp!), probably in the facebook group for their freshman class. Usually they friended each other after discovering mutual interests (Ex: someone posts on the page “Who’s planning on playing club soccer?” and both answer). After talking to each other a bunch, they decided living together would probably be a great idea.

Pros of this approach:

Friendship is likely with this path, as you have a lot in common. The first few weeks probably won’t be as awkward because you know about each other.

Cons of this approach-

Competition/Jealousy. Usually this pair formed over a mutual love in an activity. The issue is, of course, that this could be a potential disaster if you two are competing for the same spots/parts/placement in things. Jealousy can be a killer of a budding relationship. So if you’re planning on picking someone who you have commonalities with, make sure that you’re not going to be directly competing with each other.

Example: My roommate and I both do music and theatre. Luckily, we do different types of both (she does a capella and musical theatre, I do classical and straight plays) so we’re never auditioning against each other.  

Picking a roommate doesn’t work out for everyone, many pairs I know just lived together without any sort of lasting friendship. But sharing a tiny 10x12 space is a little nicer when you’re reasonably confident that the person you’re with is sane and friendly.

So while I do advise against living with a friend from home freshman year, there’s no reason that you shouldn’t try to find a roommate in other places.