Midterms are still weeks away, and already you can’t stand your roommate. Being forced to share such small quarters as a dorm room with another person can take its toll on one’s sanity. Perhaps you got a random roommate, and the two of you just never clicked, or maybe you chose to room with a friend, only to find that spending every waking moment with her is a nightmare. You want to do a housing swap, but you’re settled into your room. Problem is, so is she. The gauntlet has been thrown; how do you make her move out?

1.Leave Passive-Agressive Notes.

The PAN is a surefire way to irk any person who gets it. You know what I’m talking about: Post-It notes that are written in a polite tone of voice, yet irritate you more than your mom nagging you to clean your room in high school. In fact, often the PAN comes off as sounding like your mom. I’m getting annoyed just thinking about PANs! So, use this technique to get under the roommate’s skin.

If her stuff has flooded into your personal space, neatly stack it on her desk with a note that says, “Please clean up after yourself!” If she continually forgets to lock the door, or turn off the light, write, “Please don’t forget to turn off the lights and lock the door!” on your dry-erase board. The more she irritates you, the more PANs you will be inspired to write, and the cycle of pissing each other off will continue until her bags are packed.

2. Get Dirty.

She’s a neat-freak, you’re a slob. But for the first few weeks, you made an honest attempt to change your ways. Yet what was impeccably clean for you was still too dirty for her. That’s it – show her the definition of mess. Even if you aren’t the sloppy one, big messes in small dorm rooms can be unbearable.

Case in point? A friend of mine was sick of always cleaning up after her sloppy roommate. One night, she stumbled home from the bar, wasted, and tried to make a drunken snack. Turned out, she was so wasted that all she could make was a puddle of pasta sauce… all over the floor. Drunk, hungry, and annoyed, my friend left the mess and went to bed, vowing to get up early the next morning and clean up when she was sober. This instigated a PAN from her roommate, about how they were both adults and should be able to clean up after themselves, which, in turn, prompted my friend to leave a non-passive, VERY aggressive note that sounded something like, “This was a one-time thing, and I never asked you clean up after me, bitch!“

This happened in April. The two girls didn’t talk for the rest of the school year.

3. Move Her Stuff.

I’m not saying hide her stuff, or steal her stuff; I’m just saying move it. People are very possessive of their personal belongings, especially when they are at odds with someone who is invading their space. If she leaves her notes all over the floor, picking them up and leaving them on her desk, or on top of her messenger bag will surely rub her the wrong way.

I have had a lot of poor living situations, but I don’t think anything irritated me more than sharing an apartment with a girl who constantly moved my shit around. Once, she decided that my 30-rack of Miller Lite took up too much room in the refrigerator, so she moved the case of beer… to the top of the dryer. WTF? That doesn’t even make sense! She then proceeded to do laundry, and the dryer heated up my beer and skunked all thirty cans. I’m still bitter, can you tell?

4. Make Ridiculous Requests.

Again, this involves using a passive-aggressive tone of voice in order to be completely effective. I once shared a dorm with a girl who told me I typed too loudly, and asked me not to keep her up by using my computer past 11 o’clock.

As an English major with at least one paper due every week, typing was going to happen. And as a college student putting herself through school by waiting tables five nights a week, the typing was not going to get done before 11 o’clock. So, make your own ridiculous requests to make your roommate think a single room is the way to go. She’ll be tired of your anal, OCD attitude in no time.

5. Make the Situation A-W-K-W-A-R-D.

Typically, sex is the best way to achieve this task. Even if you’re aren’t screwing anyone, she doesn’t need to know that. I had a friend who shared a suite and hated her suitemate. Her grand plan? Invite her best guy friend over, be all over him in the common room, and then move to the bedroom, where they would proceed to moan and make other loud sex sounds. They never actually did anything, but her hated suitemate thought she was a total nympho, and was creeped out enough to start staying away from the room to avoid hearing what she thought was a sexfest. See how creative girls can be when they hate each other?

6. Just Move Out Yourself.

If you really can’t stand living with your roommate, maybe you will be happier if you just switch rooms yourself. That way, you don’t have to spend your study time thinking of ways to make her miserable, and you don’t have to reduce yourself to being a conniving, catty bitch. Do you really have that strong of an emotional attachment to the bunk bed you’ve only been sleeping on for a few weeks?

Besides, the best part about moving out first is that you can leave little “presents” behind that she might not find for weeks. I once moved out and “accidentally” forgot a tupperware container in the fridge which had already begun to grow mold. I don’t even want to know what was growing in there by the time my former roommate cleaned out the apartment and found that little gem.

[Photo courtesy of tuesday.com] 

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I know all about the stress of transferring and adjusting to a new school. When I began my undergraduate career, I wasn’t content with attending the state university that 83% of my classmates were enrolling in. Oh, no – I had to get away. So I enrolled in a small private school in London, England.

My freshman year was a blast– I was in a major city, surrounded by hot men with hotter accents, and I didn’t even need a fake ID. But eventually, reality sank in, and I opted to transfer back to the same state school that I’d once adamantly rejected in order to prevent graduating with student loans up the wazoo.

My first semester at the state university was miserable. I’d missed out on all of the freshman year bonding, got stuck with a lame random roommate, and when I did go out, it was because one of my high school friends was kind enough to let me tag along with her group. It was so bad that I took a semester off to figure out if I wanted to go through the transfer process again. I ended up going back to the state school, and – thankfully – things got better. In fact, college kicked some major ass.

So, having been on the Maybe-I-Should-Transfer fence and a member of the Transfer Students Association, I thought I’d share some pro’s and cons with anyone who isn’t quite sure that they are attending the right school.

Pro’s of Transferring:

You’ve already gotten a taste of college, so you might be able to make a better choice for yourself. Maybe you thought a big campus meant 10,000 new friends, but after failing a Stats lab where the TA didn’t even know you’re name, you’re opting for a smaller institution.

You might save money. I think more often than not, transfer students end up at a school that is more in their price range, rather than deciding to switch universities and take out a massive student loan. Maybe you started at a private, out-of-state school, but realize you can get just as good an education as an in-state student for a fraction of the cost.

You might end up closer to your friends and family. I’ve seen homesickness play a part in the big T many a time. I was definitely homesick when I first arrived in London, and there was no way to take a weekend trip home from across the pond. If you thought you were ready to spread your wings, only to realize you miss your hometown, there’s nothing wrong with applying to a closer school, whether it’s a mile from your parents’ house, or a reasonable drive.

You can start fresh. If your first semester was a disaster, You can make up for it. Sure, if you’re on academic probation, you probably won’t be invited into Harvard’s incoming class, but you can transfer to a community college and bring up your GPA while you look for a four-year school that will better suit you and your academic needs. Besides, a lot of transfer essays detail the reasons you did poorly, so your chances of admittance to a new school haven’t necessarily been shot. Once you’ve gotten a change of scenery, you can kick your old bad study habits (or whatever other bad habits you got into your first semester on your own) and focus on restarting your academic career.

Cons of Transferring:

You might lose credits…or more. I think only one of my 10 courses from England replaced the gen eds I needed at the state school. I took a junior/senior-level Shakespeare class a few blocks from the freakin’ Globe Theatre, and had to retake Shakespeare I. I was not happy. I also couldn’t transfer directly into my major, so I had to choose a new plan of study. While this worked out in the end, at the time, I was more than slightly pissed.

You’re the new kid. My high school friends had already made their own new college friends, so I was stuck living with a random roommate. Not only did our personalities clash, but the floor was full of her thirteen best friends, so even if I had wanted to hang out with her, she always had plans. Even after I (finally) made friends, I couldn’t participate in the “remember freshman year when…” stories.

You might get a culture shock. I went from living in a city where I could go clubbing every night or buy my own six pack and stay in to a small college town where packy runs had to be planned days in advance. The first time I borrowed a fake ID to go to the campus bar, I was stunned that this was a popular hangout.

Whether or not transferring is the right decision depends on the person. If you are miserable every day and cry yourself to sleep, it might be worth it to lose a few credits and start over. However, if you just broke up with your first college boyfriend and can’t bear to see him in lecture every Monday,Wednesday, and Friday for the rest of the semester, you can probably find it in yourself to stick it out. Though transferring schools is fairly common these days, in some ways it’s a bigger decision than choosing a “first” university.