pros and cons of a single room freshman year
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Anonymous
| In my son's group of 5 friends last year, 4 had international roommates. Which was weird but also it's not the 90s anymore. For my kid, it's been .. not great. The kid never leaves the room and brings all meals back to the room. But it has forced him out which is good |
Anonymous
My freshman roommate (in an honors dorm at a flagship) was depressed almost all of freshman year. She endangered our safety by failing to lock our room door at night. 2 times, drunk men came into our room after we had gone to bed. One was lost (my RA's drunk boyfriend) and one was pranking. I didn't know either of them and the pranker wasn't even a student at my school. She skipped classes and slept in late in the mornings which meant I often had to be quiet in the room between breakfast and lunch. She was flunking classes, so was often angry and crying. In the evenings, she was often on the wired landline to her mom for hours. Although she didn't really go after me, she wasn't very friendly. I assumed it wasn't easy for her to be living with a stranger who was at least functioning well in school. By the time I asked for roommate switch possibilities, the only space was a room where the roommate left because the other roommate would bring people back to the room and have sex while she was sleeping in the same room. So I stayed for the full year. Disappointment in the social life led me to transfer for sophomore year even though I had a 4.0. I had a single for 2.5 years after that. It was fantastic. Nobody needs a jerk living in their bedroom. |
Anonymous
PP whose kid had a single freshman year, and what they learned was that hall socializing was not a thing in their dorm, regardless of the type of room you had. And my kid is outgoing but also needs space, so a single was perfect. Again, this is kid-specific. And also school/dorm-specific. |
Anonymous
| agree with your original post. a great roommate is best. a terrible one is worst. a single in between. just impossible to guess ahead of time |
Anonymous
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OP, is your kid a joiner? Are they going to school with interests and activities they know they want to pursue? Have they traditionally made friends easily? Do they like socializing?
If the answers to any of these questions is no, I’d be hesitant to go with a single. If the answer to all are yes and your kid wants a single, then I don’t think there’s much downside. |
Anonymous
| Learning how to live with different types of people is an important part of college, especially freshman year. I would highly discourage a single. |
Anonymous
My ds a freshman with his own room and swear it has been a huge factor in his happiness his first year. He shares a bathroom with one other person. He is extremely social and has made a ton of friends, orgs, etc., but having his own space to retreat to in the midst of the madness of his urban campus has been the best thing for his mental health. On the flip side, I think my older son's roommate situation his freshman year was a source of stress for him. |
Anonymous
What school? |
Anonymous
What school? |
Anonymous
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Choose having a roommate. It will double your child’s social opportunities. It means they start the year with an automatic companion to attend freshman events, meals. That kid may not be their bestie down the line, but it provides someone in the same boat, for the scary first few weeks.
Finally, it is very valuable to learn how to negotiate sharing/cohabitation with a person who is different than you. Don’t worry, the school has mechanisms in place for the unlikely chance that the interaction is disastrous. My dd, an only child, found herself living with a young woman who had five siblings. I was paired with a Mormon. Much of your child’s growth in college will occur outside the classroom . |
Anonymous
This is not correct. Even a bad roommate teaches you something, if nothing else, how to negotiate your way out of a problem. A single room as a freshman is a terrible idea. It's just a new version of the princess suite at home. |
Anonymous
so does cancer. get real. my nieces roommate killed herself. not sure what negotiation lessons she learned. |
Anonymous
I agree with this (and with the PP who mentioned that this decision is kid-dependent). Adding my perspective as a psychologist specializing in anxiety: Almost all of my clients with social anxiety who have headed off to college over the years have initially believed that they needed a single. I very rarely endorse this for kids with social anxiety because the urge to isolate and avoid social interaction without any social pressure to leave the room is a slippery slope for many kids. Even when a roommate isn't ideal, there's something to be said for the social pressure of having someone in the room who will know whether or not you're there all the time. Having a roommate flushes kids out of the room and into the world more. But for kids who are going to go out and join things anyway, no big deal either way. |
Anonymous
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We see no cons at all if our DC were in singles.
After my first month of first quarter in a double, I reprogrammed the Kobayashi Maru to move into a single. Made a hige difference in my ability to sleep and to study with no loss socially. |
Anonymous
Most people will never have to share a bedroom with a stranger in their lives except for the first year of college. There are many ways to learn how to navigate conflicts and differences without having to sleep in the same room with a rando. Fine for a kid who wants to. Not at all necessary. |