Living in a Residential College
First of all, welcome to Forbes College, and congratulations on the beginning of your exciting new adventure in residential college living! This website is meant to be a resource for all of your basic roommate needs. It includes tips on how to establish a positive living and learning environment; suggestions on how to manage any conflicts with your roommates; recommended resources to help you through the process; and a summary of the relevant policies and procedures. There is also a list of commonly asked questions—and answers—about rooming issues and policies.
Roommate Resource #1: Building a Positive Room Environment
RCA study break
Living with roommates requires coming to a mutual understanding about the room and what everyone's expectations are for living in it. This form is a jumping off point for that discussion -- a way to begin a conversation about creating a healthy roommate environment.
Wherever your discussion leads, you and your roommates can begin by acknowledging the following principles:
- Rooming together requires communication and compromise. Even the best of friends will experience differences, and will need to talk about these differences and how to equitably resolve them.
- Everyone has an equal right to live in the room peacefully, comfortably, and safely. At the same time, everyone has an equal responsibility for ensuring the peace, comfort, and safety of others in the room.
- All students are expected to behave in accordance with the standards and policies of Princeton University, as outlined in Rights, Rules and Responsibilities.
The following questions are designed to help roommates get to know each other. They are "icebreakers," opening up a discussion that will help you understand each other and build the foundation of a positive relationship for the entire year.
- Where are you from? What is your home like? Your neighborhood?
- What was your high school like? What were some of your favorite activities last year?
- What are you most looking forward to this year, or during your time at Princeton?
- What do you anticipate as challenges in the upcoming year?
- Have you ever shared a room before? If so, what was it like?
- Describe something you?ve brought from home that is important to you.
- What qualities or experiences do you have that will help you be a good roommate?
Discussion Topics:
The following discussion topics and questions represent the most common issues that roommates must cope with in building a positive room environment. The questions may seem very simple at first, but can become more complicated as roommates explore their similarities and differences and begin to live together in a shared space. It is worth at least touching on each of these questions in your first roommate discussion(s), and then you can come back to them as needed, as you and your roommates spend more time together.
The Room Arrangement:
Who will take what bed/room?
Who will live with whom and when?
If applicable, how will we rotate the single, and when will the switch occur?
Setting Up the Suite:
How many desks are in the common room? How will we arrange study time in the common room?
Do we plan to have a microfridge or refrigerator?
Do we plan to buy any furniture for the suite?
How will we pay for things that we buy for the suite?
Living Together:
What are our ideal sleep schedules?
What are our ideal study schedules and habits?
Where do we like to do our studying?
Who likes to study with music, and who likes it to be quiet?
How do we feel about sharing/using one another's stuff (food, clothes, books, supplies, etc)?
What are our ground rules?
Who tends to be neat or messy (let's be honest!)?
What are our preferences with regard to having our own separate spaces vs. using the suite as a communal space?
How often do we plan to have guests over? What are the expectations for guests' behavior? How will we manage socializing in the suite?
How will we handle overnight guests? How far in advance do we tell one another we're going to have an overnight guest? How often can we have guests?
Basic Room Management:
How often do we plan to clean the room, and who will do it?
How often do we plan to clean the bathroom, and who will do it?
How will we share the trash, recycling and other basic chores?
Communication:
What should we expect of one another when if we are annoyed?
Stressed out? Tired? How do we want to be treated?
How do you typically address conflict?
How do you indicate that you need privacy?
What is our plan for giving each other messages - bulletin board, notes on desks?
What plans can we make to constructively communicate concerns or issues that come up later?
Other Concerns:
What else is on our minds? (It is better to bring it up now, rather than let it become a problem later.) Note: All rooming conversations and agreements will need to be updated as the year proceeds and you immerse yourself in classes and residential life. Make plans to return to these topics periodically, especially before potentially stressful times like reading and exam period. Make sure everyone in the room feels comfortable with your conversations and agreements.
Roommate Resource #2: Addressing a Roommate Conflict
Residential life is part of the Princeton educational experience, and rooming with other students presents its own challenges and rewards. It is not uncommon for differences or conflicts to arise between roommates as they live together over time.
This form is designed to help you and your roommates discuss differences or conflicts that have arisen between you, and to arrive at a mutual understanding about these differences and how to resolve them. You can work on these questions among yourselves, or ask an RCA or other third party to facilitate your discussion. For help or clarification with these issues, please refer back to the Guidelines for Students.
As you go about addressing the questions below, you can begin by acknowledging the following principles:
- Rooming together requires communication and compromise. Even the best of friends will experience differences, and will need to talk about these differences and how to equitably resolve them.
- Everyone has an equal right to live in the room peacefully, comfortably, and safely. At the same time, everyone has an equal responsibility for ensuring the peace, comfort, and safety of others in the room.
- All students are expected to behave in accordance with the standards and policies of Princeton University, as outlined in Rights, Rules and Responsibilities.
Topics for Discussion and Resolution:
The roommates entering this conversation acknowledge our commitment to the common goal of improving our living situation and making life in the room as pleasant and peaceable as possible. To accomplish this, each of us will make compromises or accommodations that may be difficult. However, we will abide by our agreement and strive to learn something about living and working together.
- Generally speaking, what does being a good roommate mean?
- What are the positive things happening in our room that we might build upon?
- The behaviors that have become the main sources of conflict for us are?(focus as much as possible on specific behaviors rather than personal characterizations).
- Specific things that each of us will do to alleviate this conflict include...(again, focus on specific and reasonable behaviors rather than personal characterizations)
- We will return to this agreement to follow up or to address new questions (when)...
Roommate Resource #3: Creating a Roommate Agreement
Roommates may be very different people with different ideals, values, interests, attitudes, friends, and habits. As citizens within the Princeton residential community, we all have a responsibility to tolerate and appreciate the wide diversity of thought, opinion, personality, and behavior that exists in our community. When difficulties arise between roommates, each roommate must make compromises and accommodations, and strive to learn something about living and working together.
This form will serve as an agreement to help roommates address any such difficulties. It focuses specifically on behaviors. We can control our behaviors, even when we may not be able to control our opinions or feelings.
We strongly recommend that you work with your RCA, your DSL, a McCosh counselor, or a similarly neutral third party to help facilitate this conversation.
As you go about addressing the questions below, you can begin by acknowledging the following principles:
- Rooming together requires communication and compromise. Even the best of friends will experience differences, and will need to talk about these differences and how to equitably resolve them.
- Everyone has an equal right to live in the room peacefully, comfortably, and safely. At the same time, everyone has an equal responsibility for ensuring the peace, comfort, and safety of others in the room.
- All students are expected to behave in accordance with the standards and policies of Princeton University, as outlined in Rights, Rules and Responsibilities.
Topics for Discussion and Resolution:
The roommates entering this conversation acknowledge our commitment to the common goal of improving our living situation and making life in the room as pleasant and peaceable as possible. To accomplish this, each of us will make compromises or accommodations that may be difficult. However, we will abide by our agreement and strive to learn something about living and working together.
- Generally speaking, what does being a good roommate mean?
- What are the positive things happening in our room that we might build upon?
- The behaviors that have become the main sources of conflict for us are?(focus as much as possible on specific behaviors rather than personal characterizations).
- Specific things that each of us will do to alleviate this conflict include...(again, focus on specific and reasonable behaviors rather than personal characterizations)
- We will return to this agreement to follow up or to address new questions (when)...