With the anticipation of upcoming school year approaching the excitement of moving away to college, there is one minor detail that we cannot yet predict: the compatibility of your roommate.  Whether you are planning to live with your best friend from high school, or expand your horizons with a random match, you will have to learn to get along and live together for at least 9 months of the ensuing school year.

This could be an amazing experience ending in you standing up in each other’s wedding or, in all-out feuds possibly including items mysteriously breaking on their own or sprouting legs and tip-toeing away.  To avoid this problem I have one simple suggestion that may seem to be easy enough; however, it seems to be a hot topic even at the executive level of CEO meetings.

Your secret to success is: Open Communication.

If you are both 100% honest with each other, there will be no expectation let-downs, there will less fights about what you “thought” or “assumed” or “expected” from this roommate.

In the olden days, you know, before Facebook or texting, or really, Nokia phones; roommates possibly talked to each other once or twice on the home landline telephone.  Understanding your roommate was left up to interpreting the sound of their voice on the other end of the receiver.  “Do they sound nice?  Do you think they’ll be a total party animal?  Are they smart?”  It was up to you to make these assumptions prior to stepping foot on campus to meet the person you were slated to live with.

Now, you can avoid the awkward 15 seconds where you first introduce yourself to your roommate while secretly making more rash first impressions about this person.  You are attempting to look cool despite profusely sweating from hauling boxes in from the van outside containing your prized possessions, like your underwear.  Then, you start to think, “man, I am going to have to change in front of this person!; I wonder if they like the same TV shows as I do?, wait did they bring the TV?; do they like to go to bed at 7:30pm?; and finally the realization, I think we’re going to have a pretty good time at college.”

Thanks to technology we can Facebook Stalk our new roommate and try to get a image of what we’re up against (or with) the coming year.  Despite this, I recommend sitting down the first week of school and fill out a sheet of loves and hates, preferred study time, preferred time to go to bed, preferred time to get up in the morning on weekdays and weekends.  This may sound trivial, but it will help the two of you understand each other a little better and avoid the ranting to your friends about your crazy roommate and eventually having the overemotional talk or god forbid, a deathly screaming match.

Also, grab a few of our chalk and dry-erase sticky wall art.  There you can leave notes for each other that can help facilitate open communication.  In addition to awesome decorations for your room, you can erase and re-write anything you would like on a daily basis!  Tell your roommate you love them, ask them to clean the dishes, let them know you used the last of the coke in the mini-fridge and you are on it, play Pictionary while taking a study break, or put up your list of reminders for the day!

Check out our website for our circle dry erase and chalk stickers.  Also, click here for a sheet you can print out as a template for this discussion.  Regardless of your living situation, it is good to know what to expect so that it doesn’t surprise you later.  Have a blast at college and enjoy the new endeavor!

You just found out who your new roommate is. This is an exciting time.