Live with someone else or by yourself?

[DoctorB]

I will be entering medical school next year and was wondering if it is to my benefit to room with someone who is attending my medical school versus living alone?

I would assume less distractions living by yourself... Anyone have anything to say about this?

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[Bubb Rubb]

i'd strongly advise living with a roommate. keeps you sane, socializing to at least some small degree, will motivate you to eat/live at least marginally healthy as to avoid embarrassment

 

[Biscuit799]

If I had to do it over again, I'd get my own place from day 1. When you come home, you want to relax. You want to be able to put your feet up, watch tv, listen to music, whatever. And you don't want someone bothering you about how you left your socks on the coffee table. Conversely, it gets frustrating when you come home to see the kitchen a mess for the 3rd straight day in a row. If you live by yourself and there's a mess, at least you know it's yours, and you'll clean it whenever you darn well please. Also, if you study at home, you won't have to worry about your roomate making too much noise, or wanting to eat on the table that you'll be studying on, etc.

The only advantage having a roomate has is lower rent. And living by yourself is well worth the extra money. I'd have to say the ideal situation is to live in your own apartment, with a good friend/classmate in the same complex or even building.

 

[Dr. McDreamy]

if you get a good roommate, it can be fun to have a roommate first year. i however, dislike sharing, so living on my own has been great.

 

[sendwich]

when i come home i just want to relax (w/o stressing out abou what my roommate would think). so i'd opt out to live by myself.

 

[SkylineMD]

roommates can be fun to live with BUT you never know the type of person you will end up living with. I've unfortunately had to live with a slob who monopolized every area of our apartment. Now that I have my own place, I don't worry about anyone else's mess but my own. Plus you'll be fairly stressed in medical school, why add more from a roommate who may be annoying?

 

[SelflessAct]

If I had to do it over again, I'd get my own place from day 1. When you come home, you want to relax. You want to be able to put your feet up, watch tv, listen to music, whatever. And you don't want someone bothering you about how you left your socks on the coffee table. Conversely, it gets frustrating when you come home to see the kitchen a mess for the 3rd straight day in a row. If you live by yourself and there's a mess, at least you know it's yours, and you'll clean it whenever you darn well please. Also, if you study at home, you won't have to worry about your roomate making too much noise, or wanting to eat on the table that you'll be studying on, etc.

The only advantage having a roomate has is lower rent. And living by yourself is well worth the extra money. I'd have to say the ideal situation is to live in your own apartment, with a good friend/classmate in the same complex or even building.

I agree. My current roommate is great and all (and esp. since I live in a shady neighborhood, it's nice to have some company to feel safe), but sometimes I feel like living alone just for the complete freedom of, you know, things like walking around the apartment in my underwear if I feel like it! But seriously I think it's a good set-up to live in the same complex as a friend, just cause it's good to have people you know near you.

 

[MarzMD]

If you go to class, you will probably see more of these people than you want to. I live alone, and I would never live with a roommate again. I had one 4 years of undergrad, Im grown now....lol

 

[Sophie]

I would definitely get a roommate.

The summer before MS1 I got in contact with a few other incoming 1st years and we got a house together. It's been such a tremendous help to have them around. We don't always get along perfectly, obviously, but this is more than made up for by:
-Having an automatic set of friends from day 1 (this was great during orientation)
-Meeting way more people than you normally would (because each of my roommates talked with different classmates and we all ended up hanging out and getting to know each other)
-Having someone to carpool to class with
-Having someone to vent to about classes, profs, subjects, other classmates
-When you've been in your room studying for hours on end, it's wonderful to come out and talk to whoever happens to be in the kitchen, or studying in the living room, etc
-Now that classes are webcast, I don't attend class often. I would get SO lonely if I lived by myself.
-If you like studying in groups (I don't) you have an easily assembled spur of the moment study group
-Having someone there to remind you to submit some stupid little project before midnight, tell you rumors they've heard from 2nd years about what's important to know on the test
-Having people to share study strategies with, and the ability to walk down the hall and ask about any lecture that was unclear, or see how much depth they think you need to know a certain topic in

Just make sure you and any potential roommates have similar opinions on cleanliness, and on how rigorously you're going to study (just to pass/or top 10%/etc).

 

[DoctorB]

Wow thanks for your advice!!! My junior year as an undergraduate I still lived in the dorms as a single. I took biochemistry, physiology, physics, random other classes, and studied for my MCAT. I pretty much locked myself in my room all day and studied. I WENT INSANE!!!! I have a feeling this is what is going to happen during medical school as far as locking myself in my room and studying? On the other hand, if I had a roommate I would have probably killed him as he would have distracted me.
My senior year I live in a fraternity house and sometimes want to shoot myself (who parties at 4AM on a tuesday?). It does have its advantages though as I am always entertained.
I am so neurotic I feel as though this rommate decision is going to make a HUGE impact on me getting good grades. I guess I am a neurotic pre-med (well not in a few months)!

 

[LowlyPremed]

I vote for living alone. I think living alone would be better if you live in the same building as other people in your class. Living alone is also good if you plan on having people over alot. Nothing like having a "med school free zone."

 

[yobynaes]

Wow thanks for your advice!!! My junior year as an undergraduate I still lived in the dorms as a single. I took biochemistry, physiology, physics, random other classes, and studied for my MCAT. I pretty much locked myself in my room all day and studied. I WENT INSANE!!!! I have a feeling this is what is going to happen during medical school as far as locking myself in my room and studying? On the other hand, if I had a roommate I would have probably killed him as he would have distracted me.
My senior year I live in a fraternity house and sometimes want to shoot myself (who parties at 4AM on a tuesday?). It does have its advantages though as I am always entertained.
I am so neurotic I feel as though this rommate decision is going to make a HUGE impact on me getting good grades. I guess I am a neurotic pre-med (well not in a few months)!

now you know the two extremes, try something middle of the line while in med school.

 

[psipsina]

I vote for alone if not with a supportive significant other/non medical type. I think living with another medstudent is a sure way to lose your mind. I cherish being able to go somewhere were people aren't stressing about medschool so I can pull myself out of that mindset every once in a while. I also think there is high risk for housematecide if two medstudents live together, as we all go a tad crazy near our tests and I don't know how well I would handle someone elses crazy at that time or how well they would handel mine. It drives my husband a bit nuts and I'm a pretty calm medstudent and he isn't nuts from medschool to begin with. If you have someone that you know can be supportive when necessary and isn't in medschool too then I think the not being a lonely hermit advantages definitely are worth it. But you can always just go out with people occasionally to asuage the lonely hermit issues, but you can't tell your psycho medstudent roomie who's having their semesterly meltdown to get out until its over.

 

[Disinence2]

I have been thinking about this as well! Interesting arguments both ways... Lets keep it going.

 

[donair]

I vote roommate 100%.

I found another med student (3rd year) through our school housing forum who was renting a room in her house, so I took it without ever having met her or even talking to her on the phone. It was a huge gamble because she could've been completely crazy and annoying but it turned out she is the coolest and nicest roommate.

First off I get everything included in the rent (internet, cable tv, phone, utilities, use of all the kitchen stuff). That is good.

Even better is the free advice on classes (ie: how to study), books to borrow FOR FREE, and even rides to school (I didn't have a car for a while.)

I can see how people might not want to have to worry about someone else getting in the way of relaxing after a hard day, but that isn't the case at all. Sometimes we'll hang out together and watch TV or just talk about random stuff. I can't stress how nice it is to have someone to talk to in the kitchen between the studying. Being alone that much would drive me nuts!

Personally I hate the idea of coming home to an empty house and being all alone. It is nice to be able to be alone and walk around in your underwear but I guess I get that as well since she sometimes is gone for quite a while and I have the house to myself.

It all depends on your personality. I like to be around other people so having a roommate is great for me (especially since I need to keep costs down). If I had a crappy roommate I might lean towards living alone but I don't so I am content.

If you are going to room with someone GO WITH A MED STUDENT. You can carpool to class (if you want, saves money) and you can have someone who relates to your crappy life (trust me, at times it will be). You'll never have someone partying at 4AM the night before an exam because they'll be curled up in the corner in the fetal position crying themselves to sleep, just as you are.

 

[girlofdestiny]

ROOMIE ALL THE WAY!

I found my roomie, another MS1 via the SDN page for my class. I totally agree with Sophie's post. As long as the 2 of you get along, it can be a great thing. coming home from the library at 9 or so, its NICE having someone else around to talk about your day with who know all your crazy cohorts. and as long as everyone has their own room, you can have all the privacy you want.
plus, its a MAD EASY way to save money

 

[Transvaal]

If I had to do it over again, I'd get my own place from day 1. When you come home, you want to relax. You want to be able to put your feet up, watch tv, listen to music, whatever. And you don't want someone bothering you about how you left your socks on the coffee table. Conversely, it gets frustrating when you come home to see the kitchen a mess for the 3rd straight day in a row. If you live by yourself and there's a mess, at least you know it's yours, and you'll clean it whenever you darn well please. Also, if you study at home, you won't have to worry about your roomate making too much noise, or wanting to eat on the table that you'll be studying on, etc.

The only advantage having a roomate has is lower rent. And living by yourself is well worth the extra money. I'd have to say the ideal situation is to live in your own apartment, with a good friend/classmate in the same complex or even building.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[The Buff]

I have done it both ways, and I am much happier with a roommate.

First year I lived alone in an apartment, and while I enjoyed havingm y own space, I got lonely after awhile. I didn't go to class, so sometime I wouldn't leave my apartment for a couple of days, so I would only get interaction with people electronically. It was the worst thing in the world, and I could have done it again, but now that I have had it the other way I know that it wasn't the best situation for me.

This year I am living with one of the friends I made in my class. I feel like there are a ton of advantages to this setup:

-Lower rent, which to me is a big deal. I have enough debt.
-Being able to socialize with someone, even if it is just a half hour per day.
-Along with the above, I think it is a great idea to live with another med student because you can not only talk about class and give each otehr tips and whatnot, but you can complain and b*tch about the school. It really helps to vent sometimes.
-Like someone said above, it gives you a wider circle of friends to spend your free time with.

I guess it all depends on your person preferences, but I feel like living with someone else really has a lot of advantages. You can still close your door and be alone when needed, but you have all the advantages I listed above as well. I would suggest getting a fellow student as a roomate, because then you know that they will need to study as much as you and will not be distracted by random parties or completely different schedules.

 

[Biscuit799]

Just make sure you and any potential roommates have similar opinions on cleanliness, and on how rigorously you're going to study (just to pass/or top 10%/etc).

Impossible to determine before med school. People who say they just want to pass end up being stab-you-in-the-back gunners, and people who shoot for top of the class find the best they can do is pass.

As far as living with med students, even if you don't go to class, you'll interact with these people so much that after a couple months, you won't mind not seeing them every moment of every day at all; and if you do get lonely, go hang out in the library. There's something to be said for having peace and quiet readily available.

 

[Sophie]

Impossible to determine before med school. People who say they just want to pass end up being stab-you-in-the-back gunners, and people who shoot for top of the class find the best they can do is pass.

Then I guess I got lucky.

 

[eightball]

zero,nada, zilch roommate. This is after having roomates all undergrand.

 

[DrZeke]

Wow thanks for your advice!!! My junior year as an undergraduate I still lived in the dorms as a single. I took biochemistry, physiology, physics, random other classes, and studied for my MCAT. I pretty much locked myself in my room all day and studied. I WENT INSANE!!!! I have a feeling this is what is going to happen during medical school as far as locking myself in my room and studying? On the other hand, if I had a roommate I would have probably killed him as he would have distracted me.
My senior year I live in a fraternity house and sometimes want to shoot myself (who parties at 4AM on a tuesday?). It does have its advantages though as I am always entertained.
I am so neurotic I feel as though this rommate decision is going to make a HUGE impact on me getting good grades. I guess I am a neurotic pre-med (well not in a few months)!

Try thinking about it this way.

"Don't **** where you eat"

ie: just because you live alone does not mean you have to study there. Go to the library or a cafe or a study lounge that many schools have. You don't need to take advantage of your personal space and turn it into a prison. That way you can take advantage of the bonuses of living alone and not worry about locking yourself in a room to study. At least if you go to a library or to somewhere near campus, you will see other students and you will not feel so isolated. Remember, just because you see other students it doesn't not OBLIGATE you to study with them. It's just good to know there are others around

 

[DrZeke]

I vote for alone if not with a supportive significant other/non medical type. I think living with another medstudent is a sure way to lose your mind. I cherish being able to go somewhere were people aren't stressing about medschool so I can pull myself out of that mindset every once in a while. I also think there is high risk for housematecide if two medstudents live together, as we all go a tad crazy near our tests and I don't know how well I would handle someone elses crazy at that time or how well they would handel mine. It drives my husband a bit nuts and I'm a pretty calm medstudent and he isn't nuts from medschool to begin with. If you have someone that you know can be supportive when necessary and isn't in medschool too then I think the not being a lonely hermit advantages definitely are worth it. But you can always just go out with people occasionally to asuage the lonely hermit issues, but you can't tell your psycho medstudent roomie who's having their semesterly meltdown to get out until its over.

Totally agree. My good friend is a second year and he lived in the dorms for the first year, because he knew nobody and was adjusting to med school. Now that he is adjusted and has more friends, he decided to live with people. Funny enough, he went to Craig's list and found two people who are not in med school, in the same age range as us and who are respectful and mature. He lives with them in a dump of an apartment, but saves rent, isn't lonely and doesn't have to worry about partying idiot roomates and seeing med students more than he wants to (although that can't always be avoided - living on your own or not)

 

[dutchman]

Roommates are like spouses, you need to pick them carefully. It is only a bad experience when you have the wrong one, otherwise, there is great value in having someone arround.

 

[Critical Mass]

I prefer to live alone, and my student loan allowance is plenty to afford an apartment with one bedroom.

The main thing to point out is that you don't know how much you will have to adjust your study habits in medical school, and this may or may not affect your decision to live with somebody else.

 

[braluk]

My roomate takes creepy pictures of me while I sleep. Its all in jest, but yea....

 

[yyd]

I will be entering medical school next year and was wondering if it is to my benefit to room with someone who is attending my medical school versus living alone?

I would assume less distractions living by yourself... Anyone have anything to say about this?

I am starting med school this fall and I will defintely live on my own. I've had roommates for the past 10 years: undergrad to graduate school and I am really tired of it. I am sick of having to coordinate everything with them: who visits me, for how long, whether I can have a pet, etc... It just never feels like home. So, I will take paying extra for living on my own and having a peace of mind, for once. I am not worried about not having someone to "make me feel sane" or to socialize. If anything, my roommates drove me insane sometimes with all their petty comments.

 

[Doctor~Detroit]

I am starting med school this fall and I will defintely live on my own. I've had roommates for the past 10 years: undergrad to graduate school and I am really tired of it. I am sick of having to coordinate everything with them: who visits me, for how long, whether I can have a pet, etc... It just never feels like home. So, I will take paying extra for living on my own and having a peace of mind, for once. I am not worried about not having someone to "make me feel sane" or to socialize. If anything, my roommates drove me insane sometimes with all their petty comments.

be careful what you wish for. i look forward to having roommates again, just for the social outlet. i think it really is just a matter of finding the right roommate. take the time to figure out whether you have compatible habits and expectations. i've had good roommates, bad roommates, and lived alone. my ranking is:

1) live with good roommates
2) live alone at a place with friends in the same building
3) live alone with no friends nearby
4) live in a whorehouse and earn your keep
5) live with bad roommates (no one should ever choose this option)

 

[yyd]

be careful what you wish for. i look forward to having roommates again, just for the social outlet. i think it really is just a matter of finding the right roommate. take the time to figure out whether you have compatible habits and expectations. i've had good roommates, bad roommates, and lived alone. my ranking is:

1) live with good roommates

No, thank you. Roommates are still roommates: extra people in your house that you need to be accountable to = there are "rules" to follow, etc.

2) live alone at a place with friends in the same building

I like this option, although don't see the necessity of having friends in the same building.

3) live alone with no friends nearby

Define nearby. Same building, street? I'd say in the same city is nearby for me

4) live in a whorehouse and earn your keep

That's kind of crazy.

5) live with bad roommates (no one should ever choose this option)

My current situation. Although not by my own choice. My school, regretfully, does not allow us to pick our own roommates, so we are thrown to live with whomever.

In general, from my own experiences, having roommates is fine as long as you are single. If one woman gets a boyfriend, whereas the other one does not have one, then the situation becomes more strained. Now you have to deal with complaints that your rommate is "not comfortable" when he is around, and you end up feeling guilty for not accomodating her wishes. I don't know if it is women's thing, and wonder if guys ever complain about being "uncomfortable" when the other's girlfriend is around. For me, this change in my relationship status caused okay roommate relations turn sour really fast. It is like no matter how respectful we tried to be, it was not enough. Ugh...

 

[Doctor~Detroit]

In general, from my own experiences, having roommates is fine as long as you are single. If one woman gets a boyfriend, whereas the other one does not have one, then the situation becomes more strained. Now you have to deal with complaints that your rommate is "not comfortable" when he is around, and you end up feeling guilty for not accomodating her wishes. I don't know if it is women's thing, and wonder if guys ever complain about being "uncomfortable" when the other's girlfriend is around. For me, this change in my relationship status caused okay roommate relations turn sour really fast. It is like no matter how respectful we tried to be, it was not enough. Ugh...

dunno bout the comfort thing specifically, but i've found this issue to be one of *the* most important aspects of compatibility, along with cleanliness and noisiness levels. i got an apartment with two other people once. one of them turned out to be the best roommate ever for me. the other one decided it was okay to practically move her boyfriend in after one week. her boyfriend had his own place, but they spent every night together and she would never stay at his place. she never told us she would be pulling this **** before we signed the lease, and once we brought it up to her she acted as though she didn't see a problem with the situation. i'm sure a handful of other roommates out there wouldn't either, but the point is that people have different expectations from their roommate situations and things need to be worked out ahead of time. i learned my lesson, and i now talk about s.o. sleepover time expectations along with cleanliness and noisiness expectations to my potential roommates.

for me, from my variety of experiences, i'm convinced that it's ideal to live with great (i.e. compatible) roommates. i think it's worth taking the time to look for them, when you have the choice.

you're situation may be a little different because you're in manhattan, with tight living spaces and friends automatically in close proximity. in most other places, space is more ample and it's more of a chore to meet up with friends.

 

[yyd]

i learned my lesson, and i now talk about s.o. sleepover time expectations along with cleanliness and noisiness expectations to my potential roommates.

Thanks for your input. However, by planning to live alone this is precisely what I'm striving to avoid: another expectation conversation and the bumps of having to share living space with other people. Rules and regulations regarding dishes, boyfriends, visitors, and pets are not on my wish list, no matter the rent discount. Yes, I am currently in Manhattan, but this summer I will be moving for med school to a rather small city. Still, I would not get roommates for the sake of socializing. Best of friendships can get ruined as soon as people start living together. But then again maybe it is just me, and others prefer roommate situation. I hope it works out fine for them. It is just that I've had enough...

 

[mules05]

I don't like living alone, so I chose to live with a roommate (this is after having a single room or a single room within a suite for most of college). My first year of med school I lived with another student in my class (randomly assigned by the school), which ended up not being so great. While we got along, we were both stressed out on the same timetable, and seeing how much someone else was studying was more stressful than motivating.

At the end of my first year, I moved in with a new roommate, who isn't a med student, but a grad student at another school, and I have to say that it works 100x better. We both have school and work hard, so neither of us throws loud parties or comes home drunk late at night. We also have different exam schedules, so when I'm too stressed about an exam to do the dishes, she picks up the slack, and the next week I'll do the same for her.