One heavenly freedom of attending college away from home is having one’s own space to call home.
However, unless students who decide to live on campus already have specific roommates in mind, they take a chance the people with whom they’ll share their space will make it a living hell.
Every semester, the department of Residential Life plays matchmaker, placing students together for what will be the beginning of beautiful friendships.
In the real world, things do not always go that way, and Residential Life has contingency plans for such occasions.
Theresa Anderson, Residential Life assignment specialist, said the “room-change process” usually begins the second week of classes each semester.
During this designated time, students have the opportunity to move anywhere within their buildings where room is available. If students want to change buildings, they have to go to the Residential Life office in Grace King Hall, where they draw numbers.
Residential Life uses the numbers to decide who gets first pick at available room spaces on campus. Residents then have 24 hours to move to their new locations.
This process, however, does not benefit students who encounter roommate problems beyond the second week of classes.
Anderson said there are steps students can take to remedy these situations.
She said the first thing residents should do is keep communication open with their roommates.
“If they’re not being considerate of one another, there can be problems,” she said. “Be honest with each other and set some guidelines.”
If problems continue, Residential Life will direct the conflicting parties to a resident assistant for counseling in order to work out the problem. RAs are student workers trained to meet the needs of hall residents, Anderson said.
“We’re not going to make a student move,” she said. “Each person has a right to the space that they paid for.”
If problems persist beyond this, the hall’s Residence Life Coordinator will get involved to determine if the situation is irreconcilable or not.
If a student still wants to move, Residential Life will allow the student to move to another room if space is available, Anderson said.
“The only time we don’t do a room change is the last few weeks of a semester and between the move-in date and the room-change procedure date,” she said.
However, Anderson said there have been instances where roommate conflicts turned violent. She admitted in some cases employees had to call LSUPD.
“The staff is pretty well-trained, but anything involving legal matters, we call LSUPD,” Anderson said.
In these situations, room change is automatic, she said. One student will be moved to an unoccupied room on campus immediately until a formal room change can take place. If a resident has had previous problems, he or she could be evicted.
A pre-veterinary freshman, who wished not to be named, said she began having problems with her roommate about one month into the semester.
“The first couple of weeks we were fine, but eventually that wore off,” she said. “I think we had different personalities.”
She said the problems began when her roommate began sleeping in a lot and skipping classes. Her roommate soon became verbally abusive and unwilling to compromise about what went on in their room.
“I locked my stuff up and spent less time in the room to try to prevent things from getting worse,” she said.
The freshman said she never reported the conflict, but mentioned it to her RA during a regular counseling session.
Eventually her roommate requested to move to another room, and Residential Life matched the freshman with another student, with whom she gets along.
“I feel like it’s my room again,” she said.
The freshman’s only complaint was Residential Life did not give her much notice before her new roommate moved in.
She had the room to herself for a while and had it set up for one person. Residential Life sent her an e-mail the day her new roommate moved in.
“That’s not a good way to start off [a new relationship],” she said.
A nursing sophomore, who also wished not to be named, moved into the residence halls with a friend. However, after living together for a while, their relationship soured.
She said her roommate demanded complete silence in the room for five hours a day so she could study and was not willing to compromise. She said she could not even brush her teeth without it starting a fight.
She said they did not involve Residential Life at first but tried working out their differences on their own.
“I knew talking to an RA wouldn’t help,” she said.
She said after things became “weirder,” she tried to break her contract, but Residential Life would not allow her to without paying for the room. However, officials allowed her to move to another room within 24 hours.
Anderson said despite efforts to reconcile conflicts, some students choose to move out of the residence halls completely.
If students decide to move out of the residence halls for any reason in the middle of the semester, they still have to pay the $1,052 rent and lose their $100 deposit.
If students complete a semester of his or her lease and decide not to return the following semester, they will get their deposits back but still will have to pay the rent for the next semester.
“We want what’s best for everybody,” Anderson said.