Information offered for contacting future roommate

By CAMERON MAUERHAN Staff Writer

All first-year students at Texas Tech are required to stay in on-campus housing in an effort to help students remain in college and retain higher GPAs according to University Student Housings website.

When first moving in there are an abundance of options to choose from in regard to which dormitory to stay in.

Most dorms only have two beds or bedrooms within them while other dorms can have up to four people. One thing consistent among all dorms is that roommates are inevitable.

Flex housing is an option provided to all students living on campus in which two or more students mutually agree to being roommates. This gives students the option to be paired with someone they may already have a good connection with.

“When I lived on campus I did the flex option and was able to pick someone that I knew growing up,” third-year advertising student Cesar Reyes from Muleshoe said. “Having that as an option made me feel more comfortable when I was first moving in

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since I kinda knew how to be around this person already.”

To sign up for flex housing a contract must be submitted by all parties involved, after submission University Student Housing takes 7-10 business days to process the contracts and either approve or deny the submission.

If students do not sign up for flex housing, they will be given a roommate who signs up in the same dorm room.

When signing up for student housing on campus, students select the dorm building they would like to stay in as well as the dorm room. The selection of the dorm room is what provides you with your first-year roommate.

Moving in with someone having never met them can bring levels of uncertainty into the equation. Luckily on Raiderlink’s dorm room selection and move-in checklist page there will be information on your roommates including their name and Tech email address on the left side of the screen. This provides you at least one way to directly contact future roommates.

There are other options to contact future roommates other than email, which some first-year students do not check until the start of the semester. The next best thing to do would be to try and reach out through social media. If possible, try and find an account directly attached to the roommate's name, such as Facebook or Instagram.

Social media has become a very popular way to try and find or get in contact with roommates. Multiple students have ended up contacting future roommates through social media because the email sent received no response.

“My freshman year roommate I found on Instagram and we immediately connected and started planning for the future,” third-year finance student Peter Thompson from Grapevine said. “It made me feel easier about walking into that situation knowing that I've had at least a few conversations with my roommate.”

There are also websites that students can use such as the Tech extension for roomsurf, which allows you to create a profile with your picture and interests. This site allows communication based on similar interests and preferred living situations such as what dorm you will be staying in.