Livin’ The Single (Room) Life

September 27, 2009     Posted in Back to School, Reality


By Elizabeth

So… it’s April of your senior year, and you’re meticulously filling out forms about your sleeping habits (why yes, you do tend to sleep at 2 AM and think 12 PM is ‘early’) and cleanliness habits to send to your future home for the next four years. Or, you’re a college freshman re-applying for housing with your dorm BFF/sorority sister/random classmate from English 101. Come June, you receive that nice envelope or automated email from Residential Life, hoping to get for what you asked for (please no early-bird neat freak!) And in that nice little slot, lies ROOMMATE: NONE. And your address happens to have an S by it.

Yup, you’re in a single. Obviously, a single room isn’t the image most conjure up when thinking about college dorms (and most freshmen aren’t lucky enough to get one), but they’re out there.

Nervous? Excited? Don’t really know what you’re getting into/how you’ll fit all your stuff into a 120 square foot box? Don’t worry; here are the pros and cons of life in a single.

PRO: You Can Decorate However You Want

Double rooms, although slightly larger than singles, have two of everything but the same amount of wall space. In a double, you just have to hope that your roommate doesn’t have orange sheets to clash with your purple pillows. In a single, you get to decorate it however you’d like (as long as the tape you’re using won’t ruin the walls, thank you ResLife.) You’re more likely to feel at home here because you’ve provided all of the decoration yourself. Plus, you don’t need to fight with your roommate when your Hannah Montana poster looks out of place next to their Metallica one.

CON: You have to bring everything yourself

At my school, rooms are allowed one TV, one microwave, one fridge, one toaster… You get the picture. If you’re living in a double, you can coordinate who brings what. If you’re in a single, you get to bring all of that yourself. College close to home? You’re in luck there. For some people, coming by plane from 2000 miles away, it isn’t possible to bring all of those. It can be a problem if you want to store certain liquids, but you don’t have a fridge to put them in. Better make friends with the girl across the hall with the 40-inch plasma screen for your homesick Sex and The City marathons….

PRO: You get your own space

I can’t stress this enough. YOU. GET. YOUR. OWN. SPACE. You can do whatever you want! Are you a fan of Skyping at 3 AM? No problem. Like to take 3 hour naps in the middle of the day? Go ahead.  You don’t need to share your space with anyone, thus you don’t need to make any rules, like ‘Lights off by 12 AM’ or ‘No Boys Overnight’ with your roommate. Oh did I mention that you can do WHATEVER you want? So, it would come in handy when you’re entertaining a caller of the opposite sex at strange hours of the night. You’re not going to have to worry about keeping it down for your roommate. If you time it right, it’s like she/he was never even there.

CON: Muy Expensivo

You get your own space… at a cost. Dorms are extremely expensive, and singles just follow that path. Last year, my single cost approximately $6200, compare to the $4900 of that of the double. For some families, this can mean less furnishings/trips home. In the end, it’s up to you to decide if that little bit of privacy is worth the extra money.

PRO: No Roommate

You’ve probably heard stories of roommates walking in on each other, sexiling each other or all-out hating each other. No matter how much people love their roommate, their subtleties and tics can eventually gnaw on the relationship. There’s also the more common path (in my experience) of being apathetic or disliking their roommate. I’ve had friends who weren’t comfortable hanging out in their own room out of sheer dislike for their co-habitators. Living in a single you NEVER have to deal with that. Be grateful you can study in your room when that girl down the hall has to trek to the library to study out of fear for what her roommate would do.

CON: No Roommate

Yes, having no roommate has its downsides. If you’re going to a school where you don’t know anyone, your roommate can be the first friend. She can also be your source for free clothes, homework help, and a connector to new people you’d never have met on your own. Plus, for every two stories I hear about roommates hating each other, I hear one about roommates that absolutely love each other and are now best friends for life.

VERDICT: Having lived with a roommate that I loved dearly and in a single, I much preferred the privacy/freedom that the single offered me. If you have a single, embrace it! If you don’t… embrace your roommate (and all her quirks) and hope/pray for a better housing assignment next fall!

16 Comments on "Livin’ The Single (Room) Life"

  1. grace b says:
    Sun, 27th Sep 200912:41 pm 

    I had a single last year (sophomore year) and I MISS IT!! Currently in a triple for an off-campus semester in DC and I have been severely reminded that I do not miss having a roommate(s) AT ALL.

    Go for the single. Even if it is a bit more–DO IT!!! Sure you may get lonely but no one is gonna be encroaching on your space or making you feel guilty for your living habits.

    Did I mention I had a double single (double room, just me)??? Ahhh bliss.

  2. Sara says:
    Sun, 27th Sep 200912:50 pm 

    I always got stuck with terrible roommates. Either they were having loud sex when I was sleeping in the same closet size room of them or inviting drunken boys over at 4am, or countless other occurrences. I say go for the single. I'm so happy to be living on my own.

  3. Vicki says:
    Sun, 27th Sep 20091:40 pm 

    I've had both in some form over my first three years (either roommate(s) moved out or started without a roommate) and I have to say that I prefer having a room to myself. It's been nice because I've never had to actually pay for a single but had the benefits of one, and also because my roommates and I never really seem to click.

    With my current roommate, I am especially glad that I'm only here for one semester, otherwise I might have to request a room change. She snores really loudly (she's started sleeping differently to help with that) barely speaks to me at all, and blamed me for her missing a class because I locked the room when leaving and she didn't have her key. It's going to be an interesting three months.

  4. Jenny says:
    Sun, 27th Sep 20092:17 pm 

    I prefer roommates! I lived alone last year, and it was just too quiet for me. I had great roomies during my undergrad years, and it made me miss the constant flow of people around the dorm last year.

    Fortunately for me, I live with my boyfriend and my bff this year, and we make the best set of roommates yet. :) It doesn't feel like home without them.

  5. Erin says:
    Sun, 27th Sep 20092:43 pm 

    I liked not having roommates, I had no where to paint and I used oils and other toxic things to make art, it was nice when I didn't have anyone else's health to worry about. I also had a close friend who would come and do his homework in my room so I had company, but at the same time I had the place to myself. That was a nice month and a half of no roommate. However our schools one room was half the size of a normal room, so I had no idea how people put anything in those rooms, till I saw one and it was like she was living in a box, although i must say she added her own futon and was a pack rat, so yeah she wouldn't have much space. It's more expensive to live in the one rooms but depending on the type of person you are and if you contribute to your bills then it's worth it for some.

  6. Margot-Montclair State University says:
    Sun, 27th Sep 20094:30 pm 

    Singles are the best! I’ve lived in them since my Freshmen year in college & they’re fabulous! Now I live in an apartment on campus with 3 of my closet girlfriends & we each have our own bedrooms but share 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and a living room! It’s the best of both worlds. I can see them whenever I want but I can also lock the door too. It’s amazing!

  7. Eireann says:
    Sun, 27th Sep 20094:22 pm 

    At my school, the doubles and the singles are the exact same size, and they're actually not all that small. I have a roommate this year, and maybe I'm just used to living with other people (I shared a room with one of my siblings for 14 years), but it's not a big deal. She's hardly ever here, anyways.

  8. Darwin says:
    Mon, 28th Sep 20091:06 pm 

    The only issue seems to be the expensive part, but if you could care less and your parents are covering it, then it has to be the best. Or at least a single room when you're living in a suite. We're not 5 years old anymore. We don't want a bunk bed and have another person living around us.

  9. Lauren - University says:
    Tue, 29th Sep 20094:57 am 

    Living in a single makes it harder to make friends your freshman year. I am sure it's great to have your own space, but having roommates is a learning experience that everyone should have! I know it taught me a lot about myself. You can live alone when you're older – opt for the roomies now.

  10. college singles says:
    Mon, 30th Nov 200912:48 pm 

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  11. Heather says:
    Tue, 26th Jan 20108:51 am 

    Go for the single. I ahd a single my Freshmen year and i had no problems of making friends. I loved it. I could do what ever i wonted and not worry about wether my room mate was going to kill me in my sleep. or if She would steal my things,

  12. Donna says:
    Tue, 26th Jan 20108:52 am 

    Im a freshmen in college. And i would say go for the double. I had no friends when i started. And my roommate is my bestfriend.

  13. Bee says:
    Sun, 31st Jan 20105:49 pm 

    Go for the single! Especially if you value time to yourself! I'm a freshman in college right now, but I live in a suite with 5 other girls, we each get a room, but share a bathroom. I don't know what I would do w/o a single room, a couple of the girls enjoy making the suite into party central for other people in our dorm. (Nice translation: they get very loud, not caring who they bother.) The only good thing about this is I can shut the door and put on earbuds and headphones.

  14. Lauren O. says:
    Fri, 26th Feb 20104:05 pm 

    I'm a freshman in college, and I fell into the trap of getting a double because I wanted the "college experience." Um… Yeah. My roommate is absolutely insane — hoards of stuffed animals, I walk in on her talking to her baby blanket, comes in every night after I've fallen asleep and turns on the overhead light, never locks the door behind her when she leaves, and is an enormous pack-rat. I initially thought that because my college matched roommates based on a short questionnaire, I at least wouldn't have to deal with someone messy or a night-owl, but she lied about the answers to both of those questions, assuming she would change once she got to college. Yeah, not so much. She has washed dishes ONCE since we got here, our room constantly has fruit flies, she doesn't brush her teeth because she chews gum and says that it's "basically the same thing," and I'm spending literally eight or nine hours a day in the library just trying to avoid her so that I can study (she's ALWAYS in the room, and everything she does is done at ten times the necessary volume — plus, you know, the flies don't help).

    I'm already signed up for a single next year, and I am counting down the days until I never have to see this crazy person again. My advice? Do NOT get a roommate "Just for the experience." I know some roommates who are good friends, but I also know a lot of people who are in similar situations to me (or worse — at least my roommate doesn't have sex in my bed, although this is likely just because she couldn't get a guy to have sex with her if she paid him). I love my classes, have great friends, and everything else about college life is great — my "freshman experience" would've been much, much better in a single. Learn from my mistake!

  15. Walid says:
    Sun, 22nd Apr 20123:30 am 

    Living with others can be a total pain. Im wiating for the Cops: Roommates episode, because there ought to be one. It’ll be better than the episodes they filmed in Vegas.Congrats on the new place! Even if it is smaller than you want right now, it’s all yours to walk into and take your pants off without hearing DUDE my mom is here can you at least go into your room?! (Not that I’d know anything about that).

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