Three’s a crowd
By Daily Bruin Staff
Sept. 24, 2000 9:00 p.m.
 AMY HABER/Daily Bruin Senior Staff
By Nicole Tabo
Daily Bruin Contributor
Living with two strangers in Sproul Hall was the first time Van
Chau, a second-year undeclared student, had ever slept in a place
without her parents.
“I had strict parents,” Chau said. “I never
went to a sleepover unless my parents were sleeping there
too.”
But Chau, like other first-year students, soon discovered that
living with two strangers was much more difficult than living with
her family.
The majority of students who live away from their parents while
attending college are still limited in their freedom by the
roommate factor.
Many on-campus residents share a 180-square foot hole in the
wall, also known as a dorm room, with two other people they have
never met and encounter problems alien to their previous living
experiences.
“Don’t expect a happy family thing,” Chau
said. “It’s a lot harder to forgive and forget with
your roommates than it is with family members.”
One thing Chau had to reluctantly put up with was clutter.
Cereal bowls with milk that have been out all day and excessive
junk left out by her roommates irritated Chau, but she never spoke
up to prevent tension.
Toward the end of the school year, however, Chau could no longer
withhold her frustration.
“There was one point when everyone was just getting on
each other’s nerves,” she said. “We all just sat
down and talked about it.”
From her experience, Chau advised new students to communicate
with their roommates.
“Don’t hold it in,” she said. “Talk to
your roommates or complain to your RA.”
Resident assistants live on each floor to ensure students live
peacefully among one another.
Darlene Sugita, who has been a RA for two and a half years, said
students moving in to the residence hall for the first time should
be open-minded, honest and go out and meet people on the floors,
where up to 90 students can live.
“In the beginning of the year, RAs are supposed to make
sure each person on their floor signs a roommate contract,”
Sujita said.
“The roommate contract is for preventative
measures,” she continued. “Instead of being reactive,
we want to be pro-active.”
Roommate contracts attempt to foster open communication among
residents, according to Sugita. They include such things as study
hours and vacuuming schedules. They are also designed to give
students an expectation of what their roommates are going to be
like.
“Everyone Ãs real polite the first three
weeks,” Sugita said. “But after that, the real person
comes out.”
The first and most common complaints RAs receive pertain to
noisy neighbors.
“The walls are really thin,” Sugita said. “You
could practically hear whole conversations through the
wall.”
Another issue that is often brought up to RAs by residents is
the “fourth roommate syndrome”, where a
roommate’s boyfriend or girlfriend spends the night numerous
times.
“My roommate’s boyfriend always slept over,”
Chau said.
One time, she really felt especially frustrated when the
boyfriend stayed during midterm exams.
“It was 12 o’clock in the morning and I was studying
for a midterm that I had at eight in the morning,” Chau said.
“My roommate and her boyfriend were in the room, and my
roommate asked me to study someplace else.”
“I got really frustrated so I picked up my stuff, told
them they had two hours to be finished, and I left.” she
said.
According to Sugita, guests may only stay a total of four nights
a month in the residence halls.
But this rule is difficult to enforce since RAs cannot really
monitor how often visitors stay overnight. It is usually up to the
roommates themselves to resolve their problems, Sugita said.
“The function of an RA is to be a mediator,” Sugita
said. “We leave it up to the roommates to work things out. We
are not disciplinarians.”
Although only first and second-year students or transfer
students can live in the halls, third and fourth-year students can
also reside there if they are employed by on-campus housing or hold
positions in building governments.
This will be the third year Frances Wong, a third-year chemistry
student, will be living in the residence halls because she will
serve as a Student Health Advisor.
Being a long-time dorm resident, Wong advised students to think
seriously about roommate relationships.
“Be considerate, and try not to cross the line,” she
said. “I think that’s really important.”
For many students wishing for privacy, like fourth-year
psychology student Gil Gatchalian, living in an apartment is an
alternative to on-campus housing.
Gatchalian weighed out the pros and cons of living in the
residence halls and apartments, finally deciding on off-campus
housing.
Although Gatchalian said he enjoyed the convenience of
dormitories, like having a meal plan, he preferred living in an
apartment.
“I like the freedom of an apartment,” Gatchalian
said. “I would choose my freedom over living in a
dorm.”
Civil engineering graduate student Peter Chiu, who will be
living alone in his apartment this year, shared the same
sentiment.
“You have more space and quiet time to yourself,”
Chiu said. “In the dorms, especially in the high rises, you
don’t have an area to retreat to if you want to be by
yourself.”
Gatchalian, however, has a unique living situation in that he
shares an apartment with his older brother, who attends USC.
Despite the different schools, Gatchalian and his brother are
more friends than rivals.
In fact, he said living with family helps avoid the awkwardness
of meeting a roommate for the first time or sharing bills.
“It’s really convenient living with my
brother,” he said. “We don’t have to play that
getting-to-know-you game.
“We have the same friends, we hang out together, and we
don’t have to split the bills or our possessions.”
Living with friends, on the other hand, is not as easy,
especially when it comes to money matters.
“It’s tough when the bill is under your name because
you have to split it up and remind everyone to pay you,” Chau
said. “It ended up that me and my roommates had to pay each
other one lump sum at the end of the year.”
Like those who have lived in the dorms before, Chau emphasized
sharing responsibilities to avoid later problems.
“Sit down and set up ground rules, so as to avoid major
living disagreements, such as sharing food and how to pay
bills,” she said.
