Welcome to living in Lion Nation at Loyola Marymount University. Being a college student is a very exciting time in your life that will be full of many new experiences.
One of those new experiences may be living with a roommate for the very first time. You may be living with your best friend from high school or someone new. Either way you may find out that you really don’t know someone until you have shared the same living space with them.
The following information will give you some helpful suggestions on how to get along with your new roommate(s), and give you some ideas on how to have positive conversations with one another.
Contact & Communication
It is a good idea to start about your personal preferences with your new roommate(s) as soon as possible. You will receive your roommate assignment sometime during the summer before the semester begins. Included in that letter you should find your roommate’s name and contact information. This is a great opportunity to contact them to start the roommate relationship by getting to know them.
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You may want to consider discussing the following items:
- Where are each of you from?
- Why did you choose to attend LMU?
- What do you plan to major in at LMU?
- What hobbies do each of you have?
- What are you looking forward to about college?
- What items are you planning to bring with you to the room? (When sharing space it is important to consider which items you and your roommate(s) can share in order to save space and not duplicate i.e. television, stereo, DVD player etc.)
Once you arrive on campus, it is equally important that you and your roommate(s) continue to talk about living together. The more time and effort that you invest upfront into the roommate relationship the better you will be able to communicate about issues as they arise over the course of the year.
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Some of the issues you may want to discuss now to avoid future misunderstanding are:
- Use of personal items
- Use of shared items TV/stereo/phone
- Phone etiquette
- Sleeping schedules
- Visitation and guest guidelines
- Cleanliness of the room
How do you feel about the above items and what are your personal preferences? A useful resource that can help you start thinking about these areas is the Self Assessment
Another great resource that is available to you is your Resident Advisor (RA) who lives in your community, and is available to help you with all of the new experiences of living away from home and attending college. Your RA can help you and your roommate discuss the above items by using the Roommate Agreement. You can review the roommate agreement here online or download a PDF version of the agreement to complete and print. Contact your Resident Advisor for more information on how to use this.
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All residents are required to fill out a roommate agreement. Use the navigation bar below to review the agreement before completing it. You can compare your needs to that of your roommate(s) and then work to compromise when you complete the contract. Agreements made in this agreement do not supersede University and Student Housing Policies.
When you have completed your agreement with our roommate, apartment mates or suitemates save it on your computer. We encourage you to be more sustainable by emailing your agreement to your RAs and RDs. E-mail your final agreement version to your Resident Advisor (RA) and Resident Director(RD) and/or you make two copies. Give both copies to your RA. He/she will give your RD his/her copy.