If you are attending the same school as a high-school friend, it's OK to get into the same dorm, but DON'T ROOM TOGETHER. Trust me on this one. I have NEVER seen this work. As scary as it seems, you will be happier rooming with a stranger. If you have a friend the first few days, you miss out on making new friends. As someone above said, the 'social window' closes after the first week or two. You MUST make connections to other people in your dorm or you will really struggle. You'll make friends through classes (particularly at a small school where you have the same people in the same classes for four years) but at a larger school with 500 kids in your lecture class, you may struggle a bit.

Don't go home until Thanksgiving. The kids that went home every weekend were the ones that didn't force themselves to make friends with others on campus and had few friends their entire college careers. Weekends are prime social time. If you miss the weekends, you miss a lot of fun and a lot of socializing. Go to parties even if you don't drink. Get together with floor-mates and go skating, mini-golfing, or to a movie. Go shopping with your RA. Just do something. Don't go home, and don't sit in your room with the door closed.


FTW. Seriously. I had limited choices my freshman year, but I STILL could have picked a single. Due to my various health problems and terrible smoke/perfume allergies, I either was to room with someone I knew well or room with no one. I should have roomed with no one!

I never go home before thanksgiving. There is no time. You should be out meeting friends. If you get homesick, tell your parents to visit YOU haha. They won't stay with you, you can see them, and still, they won't be there to baby you. However, you WILL learn to appreciate your parents more when they come to visit because they feed you, clothe you, and take you grocery shopping for dorm supplies. It's great.

Oh, and my RA freshman year was an idiot. We had a lot of health hazards in our dorm showers - used tampons and pads IN the showers, globs of hair like no one's business - and she refused to do anything about it. A bunch of us asked her to call a meeting and she said no until she found them in HER shower and then was disgusted. So, she calls a meeting and never shows up until about 15 minutes after the scheduled time to finish. She never apologized. She was never around. We had SO many issues because of this. However, it really was helpful my sophomore year because my RA was always willing to help out.

GasMenagerie wrote:
Misinformation: informing FiSHes for 3 years now.