With all the commotion of preparing to enter freshman year of college while simultaneously soaking in the last memories of senior year, many high schoolers are faced with the predicament of finding a roommate.

Students who are looking to connect with potential roommates before college begins are taking advantage of various social media platforms as a way to message each other. There are many apps such as Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook that have college accounts dedicated to students where they can post photos and bios of themselves as a way to meet other incoming students.

Senior Sara Molen, who was given the opportunity to choose her own roommate at Ohio State University, said “I wanted [a roommate] I never met before because I like the idea of having a fresh start in college and we can both make our own friends and bring them together.”

However, some schools assign roommates at random and do not allow incoming freshmen to select roommates of their choice. This process randomly pairs students together, often having students fill out a preferences questionnaire in which they share some of their interests and living habits.

This task definitely comes with the risk of ending up with an incompatible roommate, but there are also many ways that this process can be beneficial. After initially being nervous about the random roommate process, senior Alexa Marquet said, “I think it will give me a good opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and meet new people, even if they don’t have similar personalities to me.”

Many schools have a set policy of choosing their freshman roommates for students, but others leave it up to their students to choose for themselves. Students may select a random roommate for themselves if they do not want to participate in the search process as “going random” may be easier for them.

Senior Isabella Oligino said, “I realized it wasn’t that big of a deal to ‘go random’ and it would take a level of stress off my plate.”

Regardless of how you find your roommate, your match does not have to be your new best friend. They are simply someone you will be sharing a room with and you can always find other friends on campus or by getting involved in other campus activities.

Oligino said, “At the end of the day, you never really know who you will live well with until you actually become roommates.”