No room for privacy.

Gain a roommate and sacrifice your privacy.  It's not ideal but that's how it works when you get to college.  If you're lucky, you'll have a roommate that seems to venture out when you're having your 'me time', however, it's pretty unlucky for most students to get this lucky every single time they need to get changed or make a phone call.  Surprisingly enough, people seem to get used to sharing their intimate lives with their roommates.

Juliana Verdugo, 18-year-old child development major, says, "I'd rather be alone sometimes, just for certain things.  Sleeping's not an issue, just alone time like getting out of the shower and putting on clothes instead of having to dress while wrapped up in a towel... stuff like that."

On the contrary, Nimna Jayamanne doesn't feel as much resentment towards privacy issues.  "She's not always there so it works out well," she says about her roommate.  Nimna, a 20-year-old international studies student, is on exchange from Japan and, therefore, has different reasons for enjoying the maximum time that she can get from living with someone.  "For me, I can study English better when having a roommate," she says.  "It really helps."

A typical Los Cerritos Hall dorm room,
 shared with a roommate. 
Photo by Ashleigh Mehmed.

Living in dorm rooms strikes the question - is absolute privacy with everything we do completely necessary?  Or can we survive well enough without it all the time.  That's something that you'll have to figure out as a weakness or a redundancy in your college life.