Vet School Roommate - good or bad idea?

[rosemma]

Any opinions? In the past I have had 1-7 roommates. I currently have one roommate - I thought living alone would be lonely and I wanted to save on rent. Now, I wish I would have lived alone. I have social interaction during the day and see the people I want to see when I want to see them. When I come home after a long day, being alone only sounds enjoyable, not lonely. Plus, it might be nice to have a quiet place that is all mine whenever I want to study.

So... three questions
1. Should a vet student have a roommate - if so, how many?
2. Rooming with a fellow vet student - good or bad idea? why?
3. How do you go about finding someone to room with in vet school?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[pressmom]

I don't have a roommate, but I'm not a roommate person. I guess the thing I would think about having a roommate in your class is that you will be spending all day with this person--and then all night, so maybe a roommate from another class would be better. Having a roommate in your same class has worked out for a couple of pairs in my class, but it definitely didn't work out for one pair. I'd be a little wary of having a non-vet school roommate because of the amount of time you'll have to study compared with a non-vet school roommate. That being said, my best friend has a roommate who is not in school at all, and it seems to be working for them. (But she doesn't study at home.) So I guess it depends on your study habits. If you like to study at home, it might be bad to have a roommate, especially a non-vet school one. But if you study at a coffee shop or at school, it shouldn't be a big deal. Just some things to think about....

Also I would recommend a lower number of roommates. Like one or two because the more roommates, the chances of it being quiet for your to study is pretty low. You will have to study a lot!

Also as far as finding a roommate--at TN they sent us out a list of people looking for roommates in our packets we got over the summer. Some were 2nd, 3rd and 4th years, others were first years. Plus we got an email list, so you could email out to your class looking for someone. That's how most of the in class roommates found each other.

 

[VAgirl]

Apartments with a "roommate" style layout (with separate bathrooms and bedrooms on opposite sides of the apt) are especially good for having your own space and getting some quiet time. I've always been a roommate person, but my apartment of the past 3.5 years has not been situated with the "roommate" layout and I definitely found myself getting kind of annoyed in the past year or so due to lack of private space with this set up and a roommate.

Now, fortunately, the SO and the cats are my only "roommates," which is nice. 🙂

 

[rosemma]

I dont think I'd ever have more than 1 roommate in vet school, if I had one at all - which is why I posed the question, to get opinions. Thanks for replying! I currently live with one other girl in an apartment and we each have our own bathroom/bedroom - the apartment is actually 1300 sq feet, so it's large. I like it once in a while, but more often than not I wished I was living alone.

Anyone out there live alone and not like it? Does living with someone else help you meet people at school quicker?

 

[PiddlingFish]

I live with 7 first years and another grad student. We're surviving! 😀

 

[OSJ]

For me- I don't think I would do well with a roommate! In the past I have lived with 1- 5 girls and it hasn't been that much fun. I like my space and quiet. I hate dirty dishes and things like that. I like to get up early on the weekends too and I hate having to tip toe around because someone else is sleeping.

 

[dyachei]

I had a roommate last semester and it did not go well. She was a 3rd year student and we each had our own rooms. If you do decide to go with a roommate, just try and find out if you would be compatible. Just be warned that if things go bad, it can make a stressful situation a lot more stressed. The good news was that I could ask the student about professors, classes and how things worked. But that and cheaper rent were all it had going for it. By the beginning of December, I wasn't sleeping from the stress of finals and dealing with her.

I currently live alone and love it. I never have to worry about hurting a roommate's feelings or being too clean. I love it and intend to bring an animal to my home to get rid of the lonely side of things.

 

[shuvball1]

I currently live alone in undergrad. I lived my freshman and sophomore year with a teammate and we didn't get along at all. The whole experience was miserable. I would go to the library just to get out of my room at times. I love my current apartment and I'm not sure I could go back to having a roommate, however, money might prove to be an issue depending on the area. I live about 50 yards from my school now so I can see people whenever I want, but it's nice to come home and have a place to yourself where you don't have worry about other people's schedules. However, I do have two cats that keep me company and I think that sometimes I might get lonely if I didn't have them. 🙂

 

[soxbox]

i am also not a roommate person... did it for the last 9 years and was so done with it 🙂 yes, you can save money... but i am taking out so much already in loans, that a couple thousand more a year is so worth my sanity!!!

there could be some very bad things arising from living with vet students (especially ones in your class)... if things go bad at home (and they do... i know of several students this year that are currently looking into breaking their lease and moving now!), you will have to spend the next 4 years with them. It is really hard not knowing anyone and moving in with a "random" person... you really have no idea how things will turn out... it might be a good idea to live alone first year to get to know people that you might be compatible with and move in together the next year...

on the other hand... it was a little hard in the beginning not knowing anyone and coming home to an empty apartment...very lonely the first couple weeks... so moving in with at least one other student you have an instant "network"... and things could always work out great... however, after a couple weeks, you have spent so much time with a lot of your classmates, you will have your own "network" pretty quickly and thoroughly enjoy being able to come home to a quiet apartment 🙂

i like that i can study wherever i want in my apartment... and if i have a bunch of tests in one week, i dont have to freak out about keeping the place spotless so other roomates dont get pissed... its quiet all the time which i love... i dont have to deal with roommates' SOs parading around the apartment either!

oh yeah, you also have a very high chance of living in a zoo if you live with other vet students... everyone has a couple pets and before you know it there are 5 dogs, 8 cats, 4 birds, 3 lizards and 2 rabbits and several caged rodents (yes, another household of vet students i know!)

now this is a very non-rommate biased post i know 🙂 im sure there are other pros to living with roommates, but for me there are way fewer than the cons of it!

 

[alliecat44]

Wasn't going to comment on this thread, but it seems things are skewing one particular way, so I thought I'd share my experience/thoughts. (I'm sure someone else will be looking on here for perspective, even though the OP sounds like she probably would prefer to be without a roommate.)

I think it is VERY MUCH dependent on your personality. If, as you alluded, you are better off having your privacy (and are perhaps more introverted), then not having a roommate is a good idea.

As others have pointed out, if you DO have a roommate, I think it's a good idea that they be a fellow vet student (not necessarily a classmate) or at the very least a grad student in a rigorous program. Even if you spend the majority of your time studying at school/in the lab, you eventually get sick of it and want to study at home at least one or two days before going back to that routine. Living with folks who won't respect or understand your studying is a recipe for disaster.

For myself--and I realize I'm probably the exception--I LOVE my roommate. I was very nervous about finding one, and know that I completely lucked out (trust me, I've had some pretty bad roomie experiences in the past!!). However, for me, living alone wasn't really an option. I tend to be an incredibly gregarious extrovert who gets energized by having other folks around. Because my roommate is also one of my classmates, it's really nice to be able to study together (in silence and then to bounce questions/ideas off of each other), we both know that the apartment gets messy prior to an exam and we don't care, and it's really nice to have someone to whom you can vent about your day/certain professors/etc. I know that if I were living on my own, it'd be easier to procrastinate on the studying and I'd probably take lots of naps! 🙂 That's just me being an extrovert--when I'm by myself, I tend to be low-energy. You might be exactly the opposite.

It helps that I have the most amazingly wonderful roommate in the world, though. 🙂

 

[VAgirl]

Yea, as alliecat points out, roommates can be great. My roommate in college was my best friend and we lived together for 4 years. (Randomly matched by the school, no less!) We had issues at times, but I wouldn't trade that experience for the world.

Depends mostly on your personality and what you want your situation to look like.

Another option that might be nice for people who want to live alone but are worried about loneliness would be trying to find an apartment complex where a lot of students/vet students live, if such a thing exists.

 

[ri23]

I live with two other vet school students and it is going fine. We are in the same classes, so we have the same exam schedule which really helps being that we are typically studying at the same time. Most of my friends also live with other vet students and it has been going well for them too. It really does depend on your personality, though I feel that any student in professional school is more likely to be responsible than a random or semi-random undergrad roommate.

 

[Angelo84]

I also have a roommate but I chose someone who is in the class above me. It is working out really well. I think the trick is just to pick someone who is similar in habits--and respectful of the other person.

I would be lonely if I didn't have a roommate despite the cat!

So it can be done you just have to be picky.

 

[mtrl1]

I guess I'll chime in. My roomates are both friends from undergrad who are finishing up....and it's worked out great, even though they don't see much of me. Next year, I'll be rooming with another friend, a pre-vet undergrad junior, and maybe another student taking a year off before graduate school. I love living with non-vet students. I see so much of my classmates that it's nice to come home to interact with different people. There are a few people in my class who I could see myself rooming with eventually, but I'm very happy right now.

 

[AuburnPreVet]

I don't have a roomie -- but I'm just not a roomie person. I require a lot of "me time" and have pretty high standards for my house so it just seems like a setup for disaster. If you are going to get a roomie, I would suggest another vet student, grad student, or a very mature undergrad student that you know well... so that you don't have to worry about coming home to a dozen people playing beer pong every single night when you are stressed and tired.

... don't I sound like a bucket of fun... haha

 

[lailanni]

I plan on making a lot of vet school friends, but not having a roomie.

I'm not a roomie type of person either - I need some place I can go and not see people, have it nice and quiet, and do my own thing. For me I know it'd be best to not have a roomie.

It all depends on your personality. But be on the lookout for someone who would be respectful of your need to study.

 

[168135]

My first roommate experience was not a good one... she was a nursing student. You'd think that nursing students would practice what they preach. She smoke, she would get drunk, she did drugs and she got around. She would come into my room at earlier hours in the morning... all but one day, we had classes at the same time. She would set her alarm before mine, her alarm would wake me up, and instead of getting up, she would set it again for a later time because she was "too tired". Her friend was always over and was always sleeping on the floor. Her friend would steal the blankets off of my bed while I was sleeping, crawl into my bed when I would get up and go to the shower, and go through my things when I was sleeping. A month and a half later I got fed up and started looking for another room.

Right now I am living in residence in a 5 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment. My roommates are quiet 95% of the time. I have my own room... if I don't feel like being social or if I want to get some studying done, I can go in my room and shut the door. I love having the kitchen... I love doing my own cooking, and I don't mind doing chores... it doesn't really cut into my study time. Right now we are having bathroom issues because every day, two people need the bathroom at the same time, but there is a public bathroom on my floor that I don't mind going to.

I love the apartment situation, but I don't think that I could ever physically share a room with someone... it was stressful, frusterating, and downright scary at times... I didn't even want to try again with a different roommate after that.

 

[InfiniVet]

I live with my boyfriend and a female roommate, neither of whom are in vet school. As a vet student, I have to say that sometimes it is reeeeeaaallly nice to have a non-vet student roommate. You spend every weekday 8-5 with the same people, and its really good to be able to talk about something other than school. If I didn't have a roommate, I really wouldn't hang out with friends outside of school because there's just really no free time. I can't study effectively at home anyways so whether or not they are quiet (which they are) isn't an issue for me.

 

[david594]

I feel like there is a miscommunication going on with the use of the word "roommate". Some people using it to talk about physically sharing a single bedroom with another person and others using it to talk about sharing a whole apartment(with presumable individual bedrooms) with other people.

I would never again share a single bedroom with somebody like my freshman year of college, but for my next 3 years of college I shared an apartment with 5 other guys and we made it work. Well enough that I wouldn't be hesitant to get an apartment with other vet students when the time comes.

 

[pupsforseeing]

I feel like there is a miscommunication going on with the use of the word "roommate". Some people using it to talk about physically sharing a single bedroom with another person and others using it to talk about sharing a whole apartment(with presumable individual bedrooms) with other people.

I would never again share a single bedroom with somebody like my freshman year of college, but for my next 3 years of college I shared an apartment with 5 other guys and we made it work. Well enough that I wouldn't be hesitant to get an apartment with other vet students when the time comes.

I completely agree. I share a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment with 3 other girls this year. Now that I've experienced having my own living space (for the last 2 years I was in the dorm, sharing a single room with 2 other girls and a bathroom with 48!), I don't think I could ever go back to not having a single bedroom. But, I've really enjoyed having apartment-mates. They're fairly quiet so when I need to study I can go in my room and shut my door, but it doesn't get lonely because there's always someone to talk to. Two of them have completely unrelated majors to mine which is nice because it forces us to talk about things other than upcoming tests, etc. But, one of my roommates has a very similar major to mine (I'm molecular biology, she's biochem), so we can share in the joys of being nerdy scientists (I doubt I will ever have another roommate who gets as excited as I do over beautiful NMR spectra and the memorization of biochemical pathways 🙂).

All that to say that come vet school, I'm planning on having apartment-mates, but having my own room--the best of both worlds.

 

[168135]

I feel like there is a miscommunication going on with the use of the word "roommate". Some people using it to talk about physically sharing a single bedroom with another person and others using it to talk about sharing a whole apartment(with presumable individual bedrooms) with other people.

I noticed that too... but then again, I have gotten in the habit of calling my apartment-mates "roommates" and my old roommate my "ex-roommate".

If she is living on or off campus, she probably has the opportunity to live in a single room, share a room with someone, have an apartment to herself, share an apartment with others, share a room in an apartment with someone, ect ect so I figured that I would throw it out there.

 

[AuburnPreVet]

I feel like there is a miscommunication going on with the use of the word "roommate". Some people using it to talk about physically sharing a single bedroom with another person and others using it to talk about sharing a whole apartment(with presumable individual bedrooms) with other people.

Around here you call people your "roommate" even if sharing a large house/apartment... with separate bed/bath etc.

 

[bakaduin]

Im lucky! My roomate is my wife and I couldnt ask for a better companion!

 

[rosemma]

I meant "roommate" as in sharing an apartment or house, not as in sharing a room. Sorry for the miscommunication, I just assumed after you moved out of the dorms no one would ever want to share a single bedroom unless it was with a SO. At least I know I NEVER would, my roommate frosh year in UG used to throw stuff at me and leave her dirty underwear around!

 

[VAgirl]

my roommate frosh year in UG used to throw stuff at me and leave her dirty underwear around!

Wow. If my SO ever did that, he'd be toast (not the underwear so much, that I don't really mind from him). But I can't imagine what would happen if someone I didn't like nearly as much tried to pull something like throwing things. How did you not ... I don't know what you'd do. Move out? Yikes, talk about nightmare roommate.

 

[Electrophile]

My roommate is muh hubby! 😀 We get along great and I get a pre-warmed bed since he goes to bed earlier than me. 😉

I am not a roommate person either. Freshman, sophomore, and senior year, I had awful roommates (junior year was okay). Once I was in my first year of grad school and I could afford it, I got my own place. Much less hassle and drama! This is just my personality, but I would not choose to live with any of the vet school folks just cause I need my "me time." I do miss out on a lot of the hot gossip though. Darn. 🙄