Just dropped our 17yo son off and met his 22yo French roommate. So much the university’s housing department’s questionnaires used to carefully match roommates up.

Dont feel bad. My daughter was paired with a suicidal and clinically depressed roommate. It will work out.

I was matched up with a guy from India who was a med student. He was a nice guy, but … I was about as far from that as possible. After about a week, I moved to the other side of campus near the tennis courts, to room with the number one player on the tennis team. I was about the lowest ranked player on the tennis team. We had a lot of fun!

Sounds like it may be an informative experience for him.

I'm as white as white can get and not a sports fan. My roommate was a roughly 6.5ft tall black dude name Labron (or LB for short!). He had corn rows, was majoring in physical fitness, and was obsessed with sports.

He was a really cool/nice guy and was thrilled I brought a TV with me so he could watch his games. I still didn't end up leaving college that semester with corn rows.

My first college roommate was from India. He didn't bathe, instead choosing to douse himself in cologne. His mother also called every morning at like 5:00 am to talk, and then would call randomly in the evening and if he wasn't there, would grill me about where he was and if he was getting drunk.

It was a rough several months before the housing department finally approved my transfer request to another dorm room (November-ish?). And it took another month or so for the smell of his body odor and cologne to get all of the way out of my belongings.

My next two dorm roommates were great.

^^^ My experience with my roomie was nothing like that, but I only lived on campus a single semester because of the bathrooms and lack of a usable kitchen.

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Originally posted by trapper189:
Just dropped our 17yo son off and met his 22yo French roommate.
<snip>

Male or female?

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Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Dont feel bad. My daughter was paired with a suicidal and clinically depressed roommate. It will work out.

I’m afraid to ask how that worked out for your daughter.

My freshman roommate was a real odd dude but the same nationality, gender and age as me. He moved into a frat and later dropped out. I stayed in the dorms my sophomore year because my scholarship covered it. I got my same room as the previous year and "roommate yet to be assigned" which usually means you don't get one and they usually don't put freshmen with sophomores. New students move in a week early and when I walked around the corner on move in day the windows to the room were open and there was a fan on. My mom knocked on the door as I went looking for the RA for the key and I hear behind me "YAAHH??" as a 26yr old (male) German opened the door only in jockey briefs for my mom.

Ralf was a nice guy, they had to do civil service over there before college so that was part of the age difference. He didn't seem to care much about the US keeping them from having to speak Russian for the last 50 some years then. I only had him for a semester, he ended up dating a girl on my floor who taught him how to use deodorant and ended up marrying him and moving to Germany after graduating. He rolled blunts like a scientist and would come home and eat all my junk food after walking around town smoking pot.

He put the word out to the International Student coordinator that I was a great roommate so I bought out the room for 2nd semester so I didn't get stuck with an Indian roommate. They indeed stunk.

In law school we had French exchange students, the girls were something to look at but...no deodorant also and perfume only lasts so long.

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Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:

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Originally posted by trapper189:
Just dropped our 17yo son off and met his 22yo French roommate.
<snip>

Male or female?

LOL! Male, unfortunately. However, 56% of the students are female and 44% male. This was my third time on the campus and I gotta say I’m a little jealous; It’s a beautiful campus. Much better than the school I went to.

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LOL! Male, unfortunately

A model?

Sometimes the housing office messes up. Sometimes they don’t care. Sometimes a student doesn’t show and spare parts are put together. The kid I was supposed to room with freshman year ended up choosing another school after housing matches were sent out. The kid I ended up rooming with was a junior and his planned roommate transferred to another school. We were both without our original roommates so housing put us together. It worked out fine. We lived together two years and would have for a third had I not dropped out.

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Sometimes a student doesn’t show and spare parts are put together.

That is what happened. He received a notice that he’d been assigned a roommate and then several more that he’d been assigned a new roommate.

My son is a freshman, but since he has his AA degree he won’t be in a lot of classes with other freshman. We were hoping that being in a dorm with other freshman would make up for that. I’m sure it will work out.

I went to a commuter college and lived at home with my folks, saved money and bought a condo a few years after.

My brother on the other hand lived in a fraternity house and financed everything. And had the debt to show for it for next 2 decades

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I’m afraid to ask how that worked out for your daughter

^^^^^^^
The college counselor was no help. My spouse had a meeting with the Dean and it was corrected. The kid had bottles of antidepresants laying around and was a real piece of work. This took a couple of months to accomplish and lots of pressure from us. It was unpleasant for all.

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Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Don't feel bad. My daughter was paired with a suicidal and clinically depressed roommate. It will work out.

My roommate from college is still a close friend. I left to transfer back to Texas (a girl was involved). He and a friend of mine moved in. They couldn't stand each other. The next year, he got a roommate assigned from Univ. Housing. Turns out the new guy killed himself. My buddy automatically got straight A's for the semester. Evidently it was policy. This was in 1985 or 86 I think.

Can't imagine what policy is now.

I had a dorm roommate who was afraid of the dark and wouldn't sleep w/ the lights off. I had bottom bunk and hung some makeshift curtains around my bed.

At the time, we had pre-paid phone plans for long-distance calls. One of the first things he did when we met was ask me a favor to make a short call on my plan, since he had used his up. Sure thing, because we're roommates, right? The first time I tried to make a long-distance call, it was rejected, b/c he had used up all my credits on his "short call".

Next semester, I kept the same dorm room but got a new roommate. Over two semesters sharing a room not much bigger than a jail cell, we hardly interacted. It's strange to have lived w/ someone in such close quarters for that long yet have so little memory of each other. If we passed each other on the street tomorrow, we wouldn't even recognize each other.

Related: Not college, but my first roomie in my USAF barracks was a dude from Hawaii. Who had never worn shoes before he joined the service. He had some type of reaction to either shoe leather or sock dye. This resulted in his feet becoming very infected. Words do not convey how disgusting this was and the high point was when pieces of the skin on his feet began to peel of and stick to the rug. How he made it through Basic and school was a mystery to me. They eventually discharged him. I put the rug in the dumpster!

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Originally posted by trapper189:

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Sometimes a student doesn’t show and spare parts are put together.

That is what happened. He received a notice that he’d been assigned a roommate and then several more that he’d been assigned a new roommate.

My son is a freshman, but since he has his AA degree he won’t be in a lot of classes with other freshman. We were hoping that being in a dorm with other freshman would make up for that. I’m sure it will work out.

I wouldn’t worry. He’ll make friends with his neighbors or the French dude’s friends. Join a couple clubs and meet people that way. I ended up going back to college as a 24 year old transfer and lived off campus. Large state school. A couple clubs and I was never at a loss for something to do or someone to hang out with.

I got matched with Mitsy from Florida until they realized I was male and Mitsy was female. Bless her heart....never met her. But oh so close!