Living on Campus

Many colleges require freshmen to live on campus and while your child may think he’s ready to move into his own apartment there are very sound reasons for most students to live on campus for at least their first year.

1.              There is no better way to get to know people than to shower with them.  Of course, not all residence halls offer the traditional bunk bed, shower down the hall experience, but in general, living in close quarters with a number of diverse students is the best way to get to know people quickly and to build lasting friendships.

2.              On-campus housing is convenient for everything that students need; food services, academic buildings, health clinic, library, and activity venues. On all but the largest campuses, living on campus means an easy walk or bike ride to wherever students need to go, while living off campus may mean that students need to drive to campus and search for the ever elusive open parking space.

3.              Living in a residence hall is generally safer than an apartment. It is rare that an apartment building manager will be very concerned about a student who is acting depressed or whether or not they have staff available to immediately fix door locks or smoke detectors. Residence halls offer safe, convenient housing even if it is not the most well appointed.

4.              All-inclusive pricing. While some apartment complexes offer per-person leases and all bills paid, most do not, so students are left to set up their own utilities, cable, internet etc. and then charge their roommates for their portion of the bill. If all the roommates pay their share everything is fine, if they don’t and the service is in your child’s name, he will be liable for the entire bill.

5.              Resident Assistants (RAs), upper class students who work in the halls helping new students adjust, and taking care of property management issues, are great resources for your student. RAs are not just there to discipline students for loud parties, a good portion of what they do is build community through programming and activities. In addition to RAs, campuses also have full time residence hall staff members, usually called Resident Directors (RDs) to help students with everything from academics to social problems.  

Roommates, Roommate Conflicts and Roommate Contracts

The most important thing to remember about roommates is that almost every student will have a problem with his roommate at some point whether or not he expresses it to you. If your child vents his frustrations about his roommate, remind him that everyone who has a roommate also is a roommate and frustrations often travel in both directions. It is impossible to share a twelve by sixteen foot room with someone and not have some kind of conflict arise. Add to that the reality that most of today’s students have never had to share a bedroom with a sibling and you have the perfect storm for roommate conflicts.  Resident Assistants and other hall staff members point to roommate conflicts as the number one complaint of college students so if your child calls or texts with a complaint about his roommate don’t fret, there are a number of things you can do to help.

As you’re talking with your child remember that many times roommate complaints or conflicts stem from completely unrelated issues. Imagine that you are a college freshman whose just had a bad day; you woke up late, missed breakfast, lost your only dollar to the vending machine and earned a D on your first English composition paper. When you finally get back to your room after your terrible day your roommate is there, watching Netflix and loudly crunching away on a bag of Doritos.

Under any other circumstances, a person watching a show and eating chips wouldn’t bother most people, but after the day your child has had, its enough to drive him mad.   He snaps at his roommate “Do you have to watch that stupid show and make such a mess with those chips? It’s gross, you’re going to attract cockroaches!” He storms out of the room and calls you practically yelling and claiming that his roommate is terrible and if he weren’t always watching TV in the room, he would’ve been able to concentrate on his English paper and earned a higher grade.

In the mean time, his roommate, who had an equally rough day, is on the phone to his father complaining that his roommate is such an uptight jerk and is “Always complaining about the smallest thing. I had a bad day, and was just trying to relax and now he’s made it even worse!” It’s no coincidence that roommates get the brunt of student’s bad days. Just like family members, sometimes the last person you see at the end of the day gets the entire day’s worth of bad baggage dumped on them just because they happen to be there.  Most of the time, roommate conflicts arise from poor communication, misunderstandings, and adjustment issues that all students face.

Learning to live with someone in a small space whether it’s your best friend, or a potluck roommate assigned by the housing office is just plain hard. The best thing that you can do for your child is let him vent about his roommate and then ask him about other issues in his life. Maybe while he was complaining about his roommate some other problems came out as well, problems that have nothing to do with the roommate at all.

This is when you really have to listen to your child and avoid the temptation to offer advice or suggestions for solving the problem. When he has run out of steam, you’ll know it and can ask him about the other problems he mentioned. “I hate it when I sleep through the alarm too, it seems to make the whole rest of the day terrible. – pause -  You mentioned that you had a lot of other bad things happen today, tell me about your English paper, what do you think happened there?”

The important focus for your child needs to be his English grade and since this was just one paper, you know he can raise his grade. Let him know you have confidence in him to find the help he needs and while you talk with him, flip through the parent handbook or the college website to find information about the writing center.

Roommate Contracts

If the roommate conflict is more than just a series of bad days or misunderstandings ask your student to have the RA intervene with a roommate contract. These contracts are documents that both roommates can negotiate and sign and the document simply helps guide behavior. Typical roommate contracts involved issues such as how late music or other media can be played, how many times per week visitors can stay overnight, who cleans what and how often. These are living arrangement guidelines that individual families develop naturally over the years, but college roommates don’t have the luxury of all that time to spend developing complimentary living habits. Almost everyone has unexpressed expectations for their roommate’s behavior, but if those expectations are not communicated verbally, or in writing, they will go unmet and cause major problems. 

Tips for Packing and Move-in Day

·      Even if your family car is a three-door hatchback, you probably know someone who has a van, SUV, truck, or a larger car than you do – borrow it. Or, invest in a roof carrier or plan to ship items to your child later.

·      Most campuses will let you know what kind of help, if any, to expect for moving heavy items on move-in day. If you do not anticipate having help moving heavy items, bring a moving dolly or folding cart.

·      For in-state or other short moves, it is often cheaper to rent a Uhaul van, complete with a moving dolly, than it is to rent a van or truck from a rental car chain. Shop around before you rent.

·      If it can’t fit into a minivan, it probably won’t fit into a shared residence hall room so pack wisely and know that any forgotten items can be shipped or purchased later.

·      Most students are moving away from TV’s and cable and are opting to watch programs online on their laptops or tablets, or are taking these computers into the hall lounge and plugging them into the large TV there using a USB cable or wireless connection.

·      A coax cable is probably unnecessary unless your child expects to spend a great deal of time watching regular antenna or cable TV. College students are so busy, or at least should be, with classes and activities, than regular TVs are becoming obsolete on campus. 

·      While there’s a growing trend for students to submit all papers and projects electronically, some professors still require printed papers. Before you invest in a printer or bring one from home, find out the college’s policy on printing papers. Some colleges charge by the page for printing in computer labs, others charge a flat fee to students, and allow them unlimited printing in computer labs or at print stations. Either way, it may be cheaper and much less of a hassle, for your child to use these services than to maintain a printer and buy or refill ink cartridges.

·      With cloud computing, most students don’t even have to carry USB drives anymore, they simply log into their networked drive from any computer on campus and print the papers they’ve saved to the drive. Ah, technology!