Raise your hand if you like your roommate. Okay… now raise your hand if you’ve ever been tempted to tuck her into a straightjacket. That’s what I thought. Approximately 50/50. In fact, I’ve met more people with roommate problems in the past few weeks than without. Luckily, I’ve been blessed with a roommate whom I adore. We’re polar opposites, but in the best way. She’s the little to my big. Our other friend wasn’t so lucky.

My college made a miniscule HUGE mistake when plotting out the housing plan for the year and ended up having to temporarily triple up some double rooms. Our unlucky suite-mates experienced snafu quick-fix firsthand. The original two girls in the room were anything but thrilled from right off the bat, and at first I sympathized with them. After all, that’s not what they bargained for! But after meeting the third girl, my roomie and I immediately bonded with her. And by the time they found her some new housing, we had become good friends. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for her roommates, and after a bitter battle involving Residence Life, some yelling, the police, writing witness statements, and a groundless order for no contact between the two parties, she was relocated to a room across the building. Read More »

Moving out of the childhood bedroom to live on-campus this year? Let us celebrate the end of parental nagging and the beginning of communal all-nighters during finals week and “interior decorating” via Target’s colorful and geometric dorm section, made especially for incoming freshmen like you. And don’t forget the best part: pillow talk with your new roommate/BFF/future-maid-of-honor-and-godmother-of-my-children. Because everyone always gets along perfectly with their new live-in “sister from another mister” and doesn’t end up sippin’ haterade all year like Sammi and JWoww did back in Miami, right?

Freshmen, don’t fear: use these tips to slap together a roommate contract. Not only are you living on your own for the first time, but you’ll be living with others girls from all different backgrounds, habits and comforts of home. Whining about how she hogs the shower or heavily debating who the hell really deserved that final rose last week could be the least of your worries. Plus, as a good friend, you’re just trying to protect her! Seriously, do it…just in case.

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Unless you’re one of the few students who lucks out and gets a single, almost everyone who goes away to school must deal with a roommate. Although it would be ideal to become BFF with your rando roommate,  everyone doesn’t always bond like Rachel, Monica and Phoebe. And because girls like to get their  feelings out via emo Facebook statuses, rather than actually confronting the problem, situations tend to escalate fast.

Here are some problems you may run into within the walls of your shared space and a few solutions if/when you find yourself in a pickle.

She’s sloppy: Her clothes are always on the floor and on her bed, even when she’s not getting dressed. Strands of her hair line your dorm room floor. She has loose papers and party fliers sticking out of her textbooks and strewn all over her desk. And is it you, or does her side of the room smell like gym socks and onions? Unfortunately, all girls aren’t all that neat, clean and prissy. Some are straight-up foul! Maybe they’re used to someone else cleaning for them or maybe they’re just lazy. But if you’re with a sloppy sister, you will probably end up speaking to her about her hot mess on more than one occasion.

Solution: Starring at her mess with your evilest eye won’t suddenly make her realize that she’s too messy. Instead this is one of those situations where you’re going to have to be confrontational (but NOT hostile) and ask for a compromise. You can’t expect her to go from slopfest to neat freak, but you can ask her to make sure her mess doesn’t invade your side of the room and that she does her best to keep all smells at a minimum. Just asking her to “be cleaner” won’t get you very far. Give her clear suggestions like “please put your gym clothes immediately in your laundry and not on the floor.” Read More »

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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We’re well into another new school year and to honor that, we at CollegeCandy are bringing back the fan-favorite series, “We’ve All Been There.”  (We tried to get another national holiday/long weekend for you guys but it’s way harder than we thought so this will have to do.) Every week, Lauren – University of Michigan will comment on the common experiences all college women share – like procrastinating or using the not-so-private bathrooms. Read, relate, cringe and enjoy.

It might be your roommate’s birthday, or your birthday, or just another Saturday night on campus. Either way, you are currently standing in front of your over-stuffed closet in a towel with wet hair dripping down your back. You’ve got your pre-party mix blasting from your laptop as you scan your closet for something to wear.

To the left is a pile of jeans. 13 pairs of jeans to be exact. Dark wash, light wash, skinnies, trousers, wide leg, bootcut. To the right hangs your shirts: long sleeve, short sleeve, camis, halters, all in every shade of the rainbow.

You put on some underwear and your sexy black going-out bra, pull out a pair of jeans and squeeze/lunge your booty into them. “No late night pizza,” you think to yourself as you suck in your belly to button them.

You pull a low-cut black shirt from the closet and put it on. You check yourself in the mirror. No good.

You grab a different shirt. Nope.

You pull a blue cami off the hanger and put it on. The bra doesn’t work with it, so you slip out of the cami, swap on a strapless bra and put it back on.  Now the jeans don’t work, so you kick them off and grab a lighter pair from the stack. Read More »

It’s the start of a new school year and to honor that, we at CollegeCandy are bringing back the fan-favorite series, “We’ve All Been There.”  (We tried to get another national holiday/long weekend for you guys but it’s way harder than we thought so this will have to do.) Every week, Lauren – University of Michigan will comment on the common experiences all college women share – like trying to figure out if that boy is crushin’ too or stupid group projects. Read, relate, cringe and enjoy.

Your 10 page paper on the complete works of Shakespeare is due in less than a week. You vowed to spend all of Sunday at the library working on it, but an impromptu beer pong tournament broke out at your house on Saturday night and you were so busy eating Oreo Cakesters and chugging Vitaminwater that the entire day passed you by. Now it’s crunch time and you have no choice but to bang it out.

You decide not to waste any time, so you skip the long walk to the library and work at home. You tell your roommates not to bother you, lock the door to your room and settle in for some serious paper writing.

Only your desk is really messy. You can’t focus when you don’t even have space to spread out your books. So you clean it. Twenty minutes and a garbage can full of papers later, you decide to take out the trash. But before you do that, you might as well make sure there isn’t anything else that needs to be thrown away. You begin to clean your room. Once it is clean, you tell yourself, you will be able to focus. Read More »

It’s the start of a new school year and to honor that, we at CollegeCandy are bringing back a fan-favorite series, “We’ve All Been There.”  (We tried to get another national holiday/long weekend for you guys but it’s way harder than we thought so this will have to do.) Every week, Lauren – University of Michigan will comment on the common experiences all college women share – like the first day of classes or trying to figure out if that boy is crushin’ too. Read, relate, cringe and enjoy.

The boy you love just broke your heart, so your girlfriends decide that drinking is in order. Because nothing numbs the pain quite like a few shots of SoCo. Together with your roommates, you pick out a super hot outfit (consisting of some combination of low cut top/push up bra), take a few pre-gaming shots and head out the door to either “show him what he’s missing,” or “forget about that jerk.”

The night is perfect: you dance, you drink (a lot), and you even find a cute boy to flirt with in the corner.

Then, obvi, the relentless craving for breadsticks and marinara takes over and you and the girls head home for the Late Night Special from your favorite pizza place.

You make your way to your room to change before the food arrives and are suddenly reminded of just how depressed you are. Why doesn’t he love me? you ask yourself. What is wrong with me? Maybe if I just send him an email and tell him how I feel he will change his mind and want to be with me.

You sit down at your desk. Read More »

Freshman year is an incredible experience. For many, it’s the first taste of Keystone freedom, the first foray into frat parties out into the world. You‘ll drink with meet people from all walks of life. You’ll quickly wonder how you ever survived without your newfound friends.

But be warned: for every awesome new friend that you make, you’ll find yourself face to face with an enemy. Not a “sleep with one eye open” enemy; more like a “OMG I want to gouge out my eyes whenever you come near me” type.

Here are my personal picks for people to avoid: Read More »

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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 »