As an incoming freshman I remember the day I first reached out via email to my two new roommates whom I would be living with in my residence hall. I was already terrified because I would be living in a triple and in a new city hours from home. I was terrified to start my life as a university student. Therefore, reaching out to the people I was going to adjust to university life with was a huge challenge.
Our first emails we shared simple introductory information. Name, city of residence, and where we went to high school as well as our major we picked at the time. It was all nice, nothing generally concerned me. Then we shared more personal information. Topics like religious views and sexual identities came up, this information was not as concerning as learning about my two new roommates history with each other. They were best friends for years. This would come to be my challenge.
I started to worry if I would third wheel. I wondered what would happen if they got in a huge fight. IF they hated me, would I even make friends? It was all scary since I did not believe that I had competent social skills.
Throughout the first few weeks, I really had to push myself to go to dinner and break out of my social comfort and try to bond. It eventually worked and my roommates from freshman year are my current roommates and my close friends. This experience taught me how to be myself and reach out to others. It was overall a positive experience.
Roommate problems, adjusting to life in the university, and home sickness are frequent problems that incoming freshman encounter. Using this experience and many others from my residence hall experience can be used in having discussions with mentees about their living situations. It allows me a chance to see their situation from a similar prospective to help them out so they remain happy with their living here at NAU.
Bailey-- I think that it was really great that you pushed yourself to spend time with your two roommates to get to know them. Sometimes in order to meet new people and connect with others you got to push yourself out of your comfort zone and in the end , came a positive result which is that now they are your friends. I understand having to go through connecting with your roommate because even though I didnt have two roommates, my roommate wanted to stay inside for the first month of the semester and didn't want to socialize with other people. I would invite her to come with me and hangout but she would just want to stay in the dorms and listen to music and watch her shows. One night, I persuaded her to come to IHOP with some people from our hall and she did and then after that was very social and now we are good friends.
ReplyDeleteBailey,
ReplyDeleteThank you for hitting the topic of roommates and homesick issues because like you mentioned, almost all freshman, especially my mentees, have had some issues with their roommate/s and/or are homesick. For many of the incoming freshman class, this will be their first time away from home. From what I've seen and witness, their are basically to two types of freshman, those who abuse their freedom and those who are responsible. What I mean by abusing their freedom, are students who party a lot and do not worry about their academics. Your mentees will not come to you and discuss about their weekend partying and you should not bring the topic of partying up either. But you will notice some students claiming they do not have enough time to complete an assignment or study for an exam. So you as their mentee will reflect on how they are spending their time and if they are not managing their time, together you could discuss on better methods for time managements.
For roommate situations, which will probably arise for most of your mentees, encourage them to reach out to their roommate or if that is not possible, encourage them to reach out to their RA.
I really like your blog because it's really relevant to freshmen. I remember I was also really nervous coming to NAU and finding out who my roommate was. It was nerve wrecking! You don't know what to expect. However, my roommate turned out to be a really nice and sweet girl. I'm also not very outgoing so I have a hard time making friends. Homesickness also got to me whenever I would come back from visiting my family. I think that as long as we push our mentees to do good in school and go out once in awhile, they'll like being at NAU. I agree with how you want to help them by connecting your experience with theirs. (:
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