By Glenn Yoder
Students who haven’t had luck finding a roommate don’t need to resolve to shooting for a single anymore.
Inspired by the eight-minute dating service, a program in which two prospective lovers meet briefly to decide if they are compatible, the Department of Residential Life has designed a program in which students can meet potential roommates and evaluate their compatibility starting Feb. 25 at afterHOURS.
“We recently picked this because it’s low risk and you get to meet in person, and you don’t have to give any contact information if you didn’t like the person, so you don’t have to worry about turning someone down,” said Annie O’Dorisio, the assistant director of customer services for housing services and coordinator of the program.
“We noticed students, especially upperclassmen, tend to lose touch with people after they go on co-ops, and come back and think ‘how am I going to find a roommate and what not.’ One of the ways we could do this is to coordinate a program for them to meet people.”
Although the dating service was popular, some students have expressed concerns about the roommate program.
“I think it might work but there are so many complexities when it comes to living with someone, things you don’t notice at the beginning that drive you crazy later,” said Riana Hensel, a freshman journalism major.
“I think it’s an interesting idea that could work for some people but I think that it would end up being the same situation as they have with the random placement, some would work and some wouldn’t. It also might be a situation where a lot of people would be judging on appearances and that’s never really good. This is a difficult process and I’m impressed that they’re trying to develop new ways to determine housing. But I think no matter what, there will always be problems when living with people, especially in such close quarters.”
While Hensel said she was concerned with clashing personalities, others said they feel a roommate’s cleanliness would be difficult to gauge in eight minutes.
“I don’t think that’s really a good idea because it’s kind of hard to understand how it would be to live with a person in that short amount of time, you wouldn’t know anything about their living habits like if they were a messy person. I think it’d be hard to judge,” said Meredith Gardner, a freshman music industry major.
“Although it’s better than the alternative of random strangers being assigned to live together, I don’t think it will solve all roommate problems. I’m sure there will be people that go through that and won’t be very happy in the long run.”
While there are still some kinks to be ironed out, students interested in participating have been asked to go to 4 Speare Hall before Feb. 19 so the housing services staff can match them up with possible roommates. On Feb. 25 the actual meeting process will take place at afterHOURS with what O’Dorisio said she hopes includes at least 40 students.
“It’s kind of getting a slow start, it’s a pilot for us to see how much interest is out there,” she said. “What we hope to do is run something again in the summer and then run something in the fall when everybody’s looking around so we’re targeting all students on campus, even those in the lottery. We’ll give them the opportunity to meet people. We see this really taking off as students are interested in it.”
