Living with friends is fun and there’s (almost) never a dull moment.  There’s no awkward “Hi, I’m Alex” stage where you don’t know really how to act around your new roommate and none of that awkward/hesitant asking “if it’s okay if your roommate, you know, turns off the lights because it’s four in the morning, maybe.”

When you live with your best friends, it’s totally acceptable to cut loose and dance and sing at the top of your lungs to Ke$ha. Living with friends is fun, carefree, exciting. I wouldn’t change living with my friends for the world. On the other hand, living with a random roommate also allows you to experience new people and hang out with a different crowd.  It can be refreshing, enlightening and you may even gain a new friend out of your random housing assignment. But eventually, with any roommate no matter if she’s a friend or random, disaster strikes because you left your hairbrush out for the third time in a row.

Here are some tips to keep your roommates happy:

Do have roommate nights. Grab a bowl of popcorn, sit on the couch, or your extra long twin bed, and put in a chick-flick. My roommates and I always have Gossip Girl Mondays. Having these nights keeps your bond strong; it’s an easy way to break away from some of the stress of school, especially when it’s midterm week and you don’t say a word to your roommate because you’re cramming for your Chemistry test.

Don’t blast music when your roommate is studying. We’ve all been there—you have an exam in each 3 of your classes and an essay due, it’s 1am and the library is too far of a trek. You are focused, in the study-zone and your roommate decides to have people over for a power hour. Great. Treat your roommate the way you would want to be treated, so respect that she needs some silence and one day she will return the favor.

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Whether you’re fresh on campus or are a seasoned beer pong pro, everyone can remember the day they said goodbye to their high school friends.  It began a whole new type of LDR.  The long distance friendship (or LDF) is most common among people who have known one another for years, and are then forcefully separated by miles and ten different college towns.

Everyone wants to remain the same Popsicle-sharing, boy-loving, outfit-coordinating band of buds, so you promise to keep in touch.  Skype, AIM, gchat, Facebook…somehow you make it happen.  As you’re settling into your new dorm and meeting new people, sometimes it feels good to catch up with a familiar face.  While at first it’s all innocent I miss you’s and I’m coming to visit you’s, eventually friends start to brag.  Their cafeteria is delicious, they slept with their hot RA, they’ve made new BFFs galore.  The list usually goes on for another twenty pages, but I’ll let you just go back through your text inbox to read of the others.

Before you get down on yourself for wearily picking through mystery meat, pushing aside gray peas, and sitting with what you’re sure is the foreign exchange table, I’d like to decode your friends’ overzealous statements.  Don’t worry; they’re having a hard time adjusting, too.

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Okay, so you know how when you watch a new reality show, the first few episodes are always crazy because all these people with huge personalities are thrown together and it’s just like a huge firecracker of insanity? Things happen that happen seem totally normal, but looking back you just don’t even understand how any of it was actually possible.

That’s kinda what freshman year feels like right now. I’m meeting a ton of people, but I’m just not sure how they’ll all fit into my lives. Who will be my bff? My Facebook stalkee of choice? My worst enemy?

It reminds me of the Jersey Shore, season 1: Snooki dramas out the first week and everyone hates her, The Situation and Sammie are an item, and Pauly D actually talks – things that are all highly unlikely and strange by now (we could never hate Snookums and you know The Situation would never settle down with just one lady). The guidos and guidettes of the Jersey Shore were just trying to figure out their niche in the house, to settle down and make some friends.

And much as some of you guys will hate to be compared to J-Woww and the crew, figuring out the beat in college happens very much the same way as the Jersey Shore squad approached it. You wander around, looking for potential friends and potential loverboys…and you learn that some are winners, and some not so much.

But unlike the cast of the Jersey Shore, we have to see these people over and over again for the next four years (without getting paid), so it’d probably be better if there wasn’t so much drama that called for big ass apologies.

Some tips for staying on good terms with new people: Read More »

College: a time of growing up, trying new things, and, of course, meeting new people. From the bitchy girl in Chem class to the hot guy from a frat party, freshman year brings a slew of different characters. While no two people share quite the same college experience, there are a few archetypal personalities that, without a doubt, can be found on a freshman floor. Read More »

I know I’m lucky. Five of my best friends from childhood live within 5 minutes of me in the city. Most of us have been friends for 17 years (wow, that number scares me). I’m not going to lie and say it’s been easy for all of us to remain friends.

We all split up for 4 years of college, sometimes had sporadic contact, and occasionally went months without talking to each other.

Even now, living so close, sometimes a month or two will go by and we’ll realize we haven’t hung out. We’ve all grown into much different people than we were as kids, and if we met today, we wouldn’t necessarily all be the best of friends. But we grew up together and have enough in common that we’ve chosen to remain friends.

Key phrase: We grew up together.

In addition to my close childhood friends, I’ve collected friends from college and from post-college as well. These people didn’t know me as I was learning my multiplication tables, but they got to know me as a person much more like the one I am today. They chose to be friends with me, and not the childhood version of me.

I sometimes think about those friends from my past that I didn’t keep in touch with. Those girls I once referred to as my best friends. One in particular, I was best friends with from kindergarten all the way to 10th grade, when we slowly started drifting apart. We had sporadic contact in college, as in, “Oh my God, we so totally need to hang out!!” but of course we never did. Sometimes I get seriously sad thinking that someone who once knew me better than anyone else has no idea about what I’m like now. Sometimes I wonder why we let our friendship go when we had so much history together. Read More »

You’ve unpacked your bags, hung your posters on the wall (with that blue sticky goo stuff that doesn’t really work because you aren’t allowed to put holes in the wall) and locked your precious new laptop to the desk. Now what?

Now what? NOW WHAT?

Now it’s time for the best 7ish days of your life: Welcome Week! For the only time in your college career (besides senior year, maybe), you have no class, no reading and nothing but time to get to know your lovely new home.

It is time to meet people, take part in all those fun campus-sponsored activities, and get the lowdown on which party stores sell to the under 21 crowd. Oh, and buy books…but we recommend waiting until the last day to do that.

Welcome Week is a totally new experience to you, Ms. Incoming Freshman, so we decided to give you a few hints for survival. No, you don’t need a tent, helmut and 30 bottles of water, but you do need an open mind, a little bravado and a whole lot of Advil.

Our writers looked back into their hazy Welcome Week memories and gave us this advice:

Julia – UC Berkley: Don’t get too rowdy with the boys. My friend went a little, er, wild during welcome week and ended up missing all of her first fall semester due to an unfortunate case of mono.

Kelly UMass: Stay away from the Jungle Juice (or anything in a tub/large cauldron) and watch the roads. My first night out in college I saw some drunk dude get hit by a car. No lie.

K – NYU: Never hook up with the guy who asks, “Do you want liquor?” Read More »