DORMMATES- LVING WITH OTHERS CAN BE TOUGH

Living on campus is very different from living with your immediate family. You may not know your roommates very well. You may come from different parts of the country, or different parts of the world. Your roommates may have different cultures, different religions, different habits, different lifestyles, and different customs. While these new experiences may initially seem a little strange or intimidating to you, they may also offer unique opportunities for greater understanding of others, more effective ways of communicating, and new avenues for personal growth. On Campus Living: A Different Dynamic Growing up, most of us lived with people very much like us: our families. After many years of living together, we adapted to habits of our family members, even if they were different than our own habits. After all, these people were our families. We had to get along with each other. Living on campus offers a different social dynamic. The people you live with now are, most likely, not the people you will be living with for the rest of your life. While some students do develop lifelong relationships with their college roommates, others live Although college living experiences are temporary, they offer students many different avenues for personal growth and understanding, and for building interpersonal skills which will help them build relationships after their college years have passed. Understanding Differences Living with persons who have different habits and customs can be an educational experience. Sharing differences with one another can lay the foundation for greater understanding of different religions, cultures, lifestyles, customs and traditions. The workforce of the new millennium will demand a greater understanding of the diversity of lifestyles, customs and ways of communicating, because technology has made it easier to link persons and companies across the world, with nothing more than a personal computer. Seen in this context, living with persons who have different customs and lifestyles can offer students practical preparation for the workforce of tomorrow. Not Getting Along With Your Roommates? Here are some things you might try. Talk To Them Yourself. This answer may seem a bit too easy, but surprisingly, it is often an option that people avoid. It is easy to let problems go, until they seem so large that talking about them is intimidating. While it may be hard to approach your roommate if he/she is doing something which bother you, it will usually help move the problem toward resolution. On the other hand, if you don