Picture your first week as a college first year: your parents are gone, and the first hours of freedom set in. You’re eager to familiarize yourself with the bustling campus, and so many people are introducing themselves to you. Yet not one of their names has stuck. Knowing little to no people in this foreign environment can be overwhelming, but you find yourself at ease knowing you can explore with a roommate by your side.
Understandably, picking a first-year roommate often involves weeks of stalking and loads of agitation. Not only will you never be able to avoid this person on campus, they also infiltrate aspects of your social life, living style, and mental health. That’s why finding your perfect companion is among the most vital parts of beginning the college journey.
So what’s our generation’s formula for finding the ideal roommate?
With a surge of applicants securing their spot in Penn's Class of 2028, students were on a mad dash to find someone with similar interests, clean habits, and that same niche sense of humor. The Instagram class pages were flooded with carefully curated photos and bios that highlight their best features and the most desirable traits one would want in a roommate.
Before submitting my photos and bio to an official Class of 2028 page, my friends claimed my zero posts and minimal stories sent the "wrong" message: one where I appeared too "antisocial" and detached from modern society. After that, I felt obligated to revive my inactive profile to what I thought would appeal to potential Penn classmates, without contemplating what I truly wanted to share on the platform. Yet in choosing to showcase the fun moments with friends and the aesthetically pleasing snapshots of my life, I felt I lost a part of my authenticity.
It’s worth mentioning that these photos are supplemented with brief descriptions of our interests, hobbies, and quirks. But how genuine are those captions really?
The exposure of laying out personal details can be daunting, especially when you risk your interests being ridiculed and judged online. The last months of senior year had my classmates stalking 2028 college pages, and I recall the many jokes towards the niche interests and details that people openly shared in their bios. Yet the characteristics of an individual that we classify as ‘weird’ online can often be found charming in person.
When your post is under so much scrutiny, there is no doubt students will feel the need to embellish their identity with dramatizations and the occasional half-truth. As I went scrolling through various pages, the captions began to blend into a familiar blur. Shopping, trying new foods, and watching shows became a standard in almost each post, including my own. These activities are widely popular and fail to give you a glimpse of the unique facets of each individual. They are common likes that replace the activities that we fear may come across as unusual to future peers.
Despite sharing hobbies and similar fixations, one current first year said she “didn’t feel the same bond” found over Instagram with her roommate. “We only interact when we have to. She just feels like a different person from the one I was DMing for months in the summer.”
Because people feel little room to be genuine, it’s hard to find an affinity for someone simply through the profile. While engaging in conversations can spark a better sense of who you are interacting with, we choose who to reach out to solely based on the profiles. What’s lost in that process are the connections you could have made with people that may not fit the “aesthetic” you imagined for your roommate.
College is a cultural hub of expansive backgrounds and stories that are all just a message away. We should use this pivotal opportunity to reach out to all types of people and lessen the impact of Instagram images and artificial captions.
My journey looking for a roommate has taught me to not be afraid to show a genuine profile. Suppressing your personality may seem like the most reasonable and secure way to attract possible friendships, but the ones that will thrive the most allow you to be comfortable in your identity and appreciate the quirks of your character.
ALYMA KARBOWNIK is a College first year from Maplewood, NJ. Her email is alymak@sas.upenn.edu.
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