I came in to Grove City College not knowing anyone here. I am from a town in southern Maryland and the closest Grove City student to me was about 40 minutes away. It threw me out of my comfort zone and I was forced to meet new people. I had a lot of friends I made coming in that roomed with friends from high school and are continuing to room with people they knew for the next year. I am one of the few students that actually connected with a random roommate for my sophomore year. Here is that story of why and how that ended up (Spoiler: you may consider connecting with a random).
I was applying for Colonial Apartments (an on campus living option that is apartment style living). The process involved an application and then finding roommates. I was planning on applying with two or three other freshmen in my class (for our sophomore year). Then, a week later they decided to drop out. With my heart set on living in the apartments, I still turned in my application and decided to just go figure something out. I got involved in the roommate finder (an application that is available for incoming students to find a roommate). Through that the Student Life and Learning office had me on a list of students looking for a roommate for the next school year. A sophomore at the time went to the office looking for other students looking for roommates that were “alone” at the time and would be interested in coming together to have a better room draw number (I will explain this later) for getting an apartment. I received an e-mail from him and instantly replied. I got connected with him and another junior and we decided to go together for a triple in the apartments.
It came to room draw and we had a good number. Since we had a current junior at the time, seniority applied and we ended up getting to choose an apartment alongside most seniors. Luckily we got the apartment we wanted: a triple on the second floor. Here is a little bit about my roommates:
Roomie #1: His name is Noah and he is currently a junior Computer Science major. He is a piano prodigy and can decorate an apartment pretty well.
Roomie #2: He goes by Abram. He is currently a senior Physics major. He transferred in his junior year and was behind most (by two years) for making friends and meeting people. Operates a non-smart phone. (IDK how he does it).
Me: Sophomore Entrepreneurship major with a Design and Computer Science minors. The coolest out of all my roommate and the most humble.
For a “random roommate” situation we got along amazingly well. We were all slightly introverted, but were social. Our schedules were very different so we usually would not see each other until late at night after I would get out of practice and we would all be finding food around 10 p.m. We all were in the same Humanities class so we talked a lot about that and ended up becoming friends. A friend of Noah’s who would come by would say that we are hilarious and could have our own show because we have three distinctly different personalities: me, the dramatic crazy one, Noah, the reserved classical guy, and Abram, the guy who gets way too into online solitaire. We got along amazingly and it has been a highlight decision of my sophomore year.
It can be scary finding someone new to basically share your living space with, but here are the points I have gotten out of it. 1. No matter where you go in life, you will have to meet and learn to live or be around new people. Why not get practice now? 2. Getting out of your comfort zone can often lead to the greatest rewards. I had zero expectations out of this living situation and ended up loving it. 3. Do not go with what everyone else was doing; do what you want to do. A majority of my friends went into fraternities and housing groups. I wanted to stay independent. It is scary to do that when all your friends are not with you, but it ended up paying off for me.
