Although I tend to agree with Maureen Dowd’s opinions in her New York Times columns, every once in a while she gets things wrong. Like today, when she sings the praises of the “serendipity of ending up with [college] roommates that you like, despite your differences, or can’t stand, despite your similarities, or grow to like, despite your reservations.” She writes that this “is an experience that toughens you up and broadens you out for the rest of life.” Responding to a Wall Street Journal article about the increasing number of incoming freshmen who are turning to Web sites like Facebook’s RoomBug or URoomSurf to find their freshmen roommates, Dowd argues that choosing your own freshman roommates, instead of following the usual practice of letting the college do it for you, “retards creativity and social growth.” Furthermore, she thinks that the practice of colleges assigning roommates pushes back against “the lack of full-throated political and cultural debates on campuses (as opposed to ersatz debates on cable TV), replaced by a quiet P.C. acceptance of differing views or an obnoxious stereotyping of anyone different.”
Dowd argues that when students who are entirely different in personality and habits are compelled to share sleeping and living quarters during their first year in college, the practice of working things out in their room (e.g., “Listen, I can’t sleep what with your seven alarm clocks ticking all night long”) will translate into students who are more willing to take a stand in the classroom and on the college campus in general. For Dowd, the surprise roommate assigned by the college (presumably after at least a little perfunctory checking about personal habits) inexorably leads to more tolerance of others in general. And it’s even good practical experience for the working world, where getting along with jerks is part of the job.
Dowd, it seems to me, has succumbed to the romantic notion of what promotes tolerance—that if you throw people together, they’ll eventually get along. This may work for cats, but not necessarily for college-assigned roommates—especially when around 90 percent of today’s college kids arrive on campus having never shared a bedroom. If Dowd were right, the world would be a much better place than it is. After all, most human beings, in most places, share sleeping and living quarters with other family members. It is neither a character deficiency nor a sign of an inability to get along with others for people to want to share their living quarters with people with whom they share habits—the same person who demands eight hours sleep, or can only study to loud music, may be fully tolerant when it comes to other people’s religions or political leanings.
Besides, what is there to compromise over when a nice student is compelled to live with a snarky, spoiled one? Unless both students arrive on campus flexible about having good manners (in which case they don’t really have any), the most likely outcome is a fair amount of misery for the semester for the nice person, and no big deal for the snarky one.
Agreed, college is a time to open up students to new ideas about the world. Yet to draw connections between quotidian habits in one’s dorm room and intellectual openness in the classroom or on campus is one mighty big leap. By the time a young person goes to college, personal habits are pretty well formed. To alter them requires a revolution of the will, not merely a semester’s intimate encounter with a personality with whom one is seriously at odds. If students are finding new ways to find roommates with whom they are sympathetic, let them be. The place to encourage them to greet, meet and grow is in the classroom and on the campus at large.
12 Responses to Should Maureen Dowd and I Be Roomies?
chuckkle - August 11, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Students at residential colleges are hardly ever forced to stay with the same roommate; a fair amount of mutually agreed on swapping goes on and in “difficult” cases the residence halls staff is usually well trained to deal with problematic cases. (My roommate has a gun in the closet, or uses drugs to excess, or smells funny, steals my clothes, etc.) My first semester freshman roommate was an Orthodox Jew from the Midwest who kept to a kosher diet. Fine with me, raised urban Protestant. But he was hopelessly unprepared for living away from home: I had worked in restaurants for several years and knew more about cooking than he did. He mostly ate dry cereal with milk even though I tracked down Kosher sausage, etc. for him. did we each learn, yes? Did we end up with different roommates next semester? yes, but still in the same residence. No big deal.Chuck Kleinhans
jffoster - August 12, 2010 at 8:52 am
Maureen Dowd is right on this one, though I might not endorse all her reasons. Prof. Fendrich, you sound here like one of those Associate Deans for enhighschoolization and one of those “First Year Experience” Directors. The students can’t do anything for themselves. And they’ll never learn if they never get a chance to try. As No 1 points out, in cases of real, serious, prolonged major clashes, most colleges manage a switch in roommates. I took potluck the whole time I was in college and first year of graduate school (after which I got married and moved out of dorms). Yes, there were clashes and yes we made it work. So did most other students I knew. Let em grow up in time to be able to run the country. We’re getting old.
dank48 - August 12, 2010 at 8:59 am
The romantic notion that people thrown together without regard for who goes where will lead to tolerance is interesting. After all, that’s pretty much the way we are on this earth, each of us from Day One deposited somewhere or other, sink or swim. As for tolerance, I don’t know. Looking around, it seems we’re doing all right in some areas, but there certainly do seem to be some trouble spots. Of course there’s the tension between expectations and results. One thing about randomness, you don’t go into it with much in the way of preconceptions, whereas if you choose your roommate and vice versa, you’re betting the outcome will be better than chance would provide. Given the divorce rate, I wonder whether choice ends up improving the experience.
goxewu - August 12, 2010 at 9:25 am
Re #2:”Let ‘em grow up in time to be able to run the country.”* Part, if not most, of “growing up” is being able to make choices and abiding by the consequences of those choices. Choose your college, suffer the consequences. Choose your major, suffer the consequences. Choose your roomie, suffer the consequences. Actually, Prof. Foster said it himself: “The students can’t do anything for themselves. And they’ll never learn if they never get a chance to try.”"Yes, there were clashes and yes we made it work.”* Might we hear from some of Prof. Foster’s old roomies on how well “we made it work”?The whole “I didn’t get to choose my freshman roomie and I just toughed it out and look how I turned out” is just another variation of the grizzled oldy (this includes Ms. Dowd) whittlin’ in front of the General Store, grousing about all these new-fangled conveniences (telephones, radios, TVs, computers, GPS systems, and roommate-choosing software) that make the current generation such a bunch of princessy softies. Give it a rest, old-timers.** Today, you probably couldn’t even get into the college that chose your freshman roomie for you.** I’m at least as old as Prof. Foster and Ms. Dowd, despite the length of her tooth, wouldn’t be an age-appropriate date for me.
trendisnotdestiny - August 12, 2010 at 10:32 am
I think this idea fits better during a period where community inclusion has been more prevalent. Certainly, we all can benefit from difference and exposure to a changing environment. However, it is also possible that we have increased potentials to opt of relationships now through the internet and handheld technologies, internalized consumption patterns and previously formed facebook relational network…. In my limited view, I see a lot of potential for increased individualism within a very clever suggestion…. I suspect that if this was a requirement two decades ago, it would have done more good than now.
mgrimaldi - August 12, 2010 at 10:40 am
I agree with Dowd. The key is that the college student ought to arrive on campus with an open mind and expectation life will be enriched by the total experience, not just the classroom experience. I hated and loved something about every residence hall roommate I had, none of whom I ever selected myself. The important thing: I learned something — about myself, about life, about getting along — from every one of them. Isn’t that what college is all about? Learning?
ksledge - August 12, 2010 at 2:15 pm
I’m also more with Dowd than Fendrich on this one, though I see the arguments for both sides. There are some match-ups that make absolute no sense and can be damaging. But a lot of the time, there is much to be gained from random assignment. The benefits aren’t so much about learning to appreciate other cultures or opening one’s mind (though that’s part of it). I think random assignment helps students learn how to deal with people. You can’t always choose your colleagues. And more generally, you can’t always get what you want in life. How do you adapt to the circumstances? Plus, it only applies to freshman year! After that you can choose to live with whomever you want, typically. So what’s the big deal?
painter33 - August 12, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Allowing first-year students to choose their roommates electronically or even encouraging them to meet face-to-face before matriculation has the unintended consequence of alienating those who do not or cannot make a prior selection. “Are they outcasts or anti-social? They don’t fit in, right? They must be losers.” These statements and so many other social criticisms just create problems for those who innocently leave their lot to chance and to the housing people. “Did they purposely put those two together? Maybe she/he can straighten out her/him (probably not). I had the good fortune to be in a dorm room with a student from Kenya, from whom I learned a good deal about his country and continent. He was a pompous ass, but that was also informative. The next year, when I could have elected to room with a friend, I choose to be surprised again, this time meeting a student from my home state but from an entirely different background. Neither became a life-long friend, but I never felt constrained – I could always visit with friends or they could come to my room since we all respected each others privacy and accepted our respective foibles. Life always comes at you, so adapt and learn to live with it.
goxewu - August 16, 2010 at 8:29 am
“Life always comes at you, so adapt and learn to live with it.”In that regard, why let students choose their own classes? Or majors? Or even what colleges they attend? Let’s throw no-choice “life” whole at the princessy lil’ wimps so they’ll really learn to adapt and live with it.
jabberwocky12 - August 16, 2010 at 11:17 am
I agree with Dowd totally. Although I was in the “fortunate” position of never sharing a room at university, some of the best friends I made there were people that, at first glance, I would have avoided, and, in many cases, did avoid for as long as possible. By the time I left, the education I received from them was worth (almost) as much as the education I received from my classes. I can only hope that I made some contribution to their education.
dmillho1 - August 16, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Actually, cats required to live together do not necessarily ever get along. . In my 5-cat household, the most senior cat and one of the other cats continue, after 3 years, to snarl and spat at each other. Kathy
marka - August 17, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Hmm … the ‘sink or swim’ dynamic can work for those who swim – not so good for those who sink. I happen to have been lucky with the random freshman assignment, but not everyone was so lucky. One of my friends basically didn’t use his room because of his roommate’s habits, and found another roommate for the next semester.Nowadays folks have more choice, and choice presents both opportunity & challenge.Yes, one can ‘learn’ from one’s experiences, but you have to survive the experience to make it worth while: one can ‘learn’ from being a crime victim or worse, but we wouldn’t want to force that learning opportunity on everyone, would we? Whatever doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger? Romantic vision, indeed …