This article is featured in the 2024 Freshman special issue.
Last August, I was sitting at my desk at home when I got a much-anticipated notification: my college room assignment had arrived.
South House
Mid Fayerweather Hall
Room 109
I stared at my computer screen. Below those details were the emails of two strangers — two strangers with whom I would be sharing a two-room triple for the next year. Up until that point, I had known what most of my dorm would look like — the shelves I’d bring, the posters I’d hang up. But the most pivotal, make-or-break component of my room was left up to a short questionnaire and fate.
The Office of Residential Life uses incoming first-year students’ responses to a “lifestyle survey” to house compatible classmates together. According to ORL’s website, housing and roommate assignments are made “based on information [students] provide in the lifestyle survey of [their] housing profile.” While ORL acknowledges that the survey questions offer “only a glimpse into [a student’s] personality and living preferences,” the website states that ORL has “found them to be good indicators of roommate compatibility.”
Once students have been matched, it’s up to them on how to proceed with their assigned roommates — whether through social media deep dives, message exchanges or conversations with mutual friends. When Luke Gerdeman ’27 received his roommate assignment, his first instinct was to check his new roommate’s Instagram.
“I was like, ‘Oh, this is probably not going to work,’” Gerdeman said. “At the time, he had a mullet. … Then we started texting, and he was like, ‘I’m ROTC.’ All of those things [the mullet and training for the military] made me a little uneasy.”
But first impressions — especially impressions based on social media profiles — aren’t everything. When he met his roommate in person, Gerdeman’s concerns dissipated. The duo’s conversation on move-in day lasted hours, and they “got pretty deep” in ways he hadn’t expected, he explained. As the term progressed, so did their friendship.
“One day, he just went out and came back with a bunch of random free posters,” Gerdeman recounted. “They were total nonsense. He brought back a giant image of Emily Dickinson. Then, there was a poster for the movie ‘The Pope’s Exorcist.’ It was so random and weird — I loved it. I guess it just sort of turned out that we have pretty similar senses of humor.”
Similarly, Kat Mueller ’27 said her randomly assigned roommate became a “best friend” — one she could lean on throughout freshman year. Although Mueller felt like she had fewer opportunities to bond with her floormates — since she was placed on a mixed-class, mixed-gender floor — she and her roommate became “really close.”
“We would always debrief every night before bed,” Mueller said. “[My roommate] Ellie was such a rock during my first year at college. I don’t know what I would have done without her.”
While the College’s lifestyle survey aims to gauge compatibility, the questionnaire does not explicitly ask about students’ personalities. Instead, questions include whether you sleep with an open window and how clean you prefer your room to be. As a result, students are often paired with roommates who have different hobbies and interests — an element which Gerdeman appreciated.
According to Gerdeman, the random roommate system forced him to step outside of his usual campus spaces — particularly as he and his roommate “support each other’s work.”
“He sees me in performances [and] he’ll take photos of me,” he said. “I’ve gone to some [Dartmouth Political Union] events, which is something I never would have done without knowing him. … If not for this random survey, I wouldn’t have sought him out, and we probably wouldn’t have met … in any other circumstance. So, I’m really grateful for that.”
For Jordan Loughran ’27, the experience of living with two roommates who were “all super different from each other” similarly challenged him in ways that proved valuable, helping him to further appreciate people’s differences.
“It opened my eyes to being able to get along with people I don’t have a bunch in common with initially, and how to live with and be open to different situations and people,” Loughran said. “It helped show that I was capable of that sort of thing.”
Catherine Horner ’26 said she considers her freshman year roommate, who was an international student and had a “very different … cultural upbringing,” a “cool familiar face” around campus.
“We would have interesting conversations about our friends, why we have certain opinions on social issues and how our experiences in different countries have made us gain different perspectives,” Horner said. “I feel like I learned a lot just from hearing her talk — she did all the things that a freshman year roommate is intended to do.”
At the same time, having roommates with diverse interests can lead to challenges for some students. Jeffrey McAtee ’27 said the mix of personalities in his two-room triple in Mid Fayerweather Hall made it more challenging for him and his roommates to connect.
“Our room had a lot of people saying, ‘Wow, that’s crazy that you all were put together,’” McAtee said. “The form doesn’t really ask questions about who your friends typically are, and your passions and hobbies. If it did, it could probably put you in an environment with people that you’re not so different from.”
Mueller pointed out that Dartmouth’s policy of assigning roommates relieves the pressure that some students at other schools face when choosing a roommate themselves.
“Even if you pick your roommate, that doesn’t necessarily end up well,” she said. “Having that out of your hands takes away the stress of having to find someone who you’re judging off of very little interaction. Having an algorithm do it for you is kind of nice.”
My freshman year roommates and I came from totally opposite parts of campus. Throughout the year, we grew into our own routines, friends and academic pursuits. What I came to realize is that roommates do not have to be the monumental, be-all and end-all you’ll often hear that they are. They are a single part of the wide support network you will form throughout your first year at Dartmouth — and if they end up being a close friend, even better.
When I ventured outside of my room, I found friends on my floor. On Sunday mornings, my floormates and I would knock on each other’s cracked wooden doors to get breakfast. I enjoyed chatter over the last slice of Domino’s in the common room. I had study sessions on the fire escape.
Roommate roulette is much more complex than just pairing people together — rooms beget floors beget residence halls, all of which forms our community.
I can’t predict where you’ll find your communities on campus. They may be in your room, in clubs or in classes. Just don’t forget — your biggest supporters may be closer than you think. They may even be the people you share a half-bath with.
