Room Swaps

It is mid November and time for the room swaps to begin.

Seven girls living on the third floor of East Shaw spend a day preparing for their move and the next day is spent moving furniture, clothing, and other personal items back and forth down the hall until every student was in their new room.

The success of this move is not only a relief to the students themselves, but to the mentor and intercultural aide as well.

"Once there is like a lot of issues in the hall, it can get overwhelming. Like you want everybody to be happy where they are living. When you have all this chaos and all these girls not happy, you put a strain in the floor and the relationships that we are trying to bring together," said OCAT Intercultural Aide Mimi Martinez.

Friends of other floor members have even noticed the difference in the mood of the floor overall since the room swap.

"I visit my friend at least once a week and since the girls down the hall have switched rooms with each other, there are a lot less arguments going on towards the end of the night when they all used to be home at the same time. Everyone seems to be a lot happier and a lot more open to having fun than they used to when the girls personalities were clashing," said Michigan State University sophomore Jessica Davis, "This transitional housing thing is a joke. It is causing too many people to live in too cramped a space...no wonder so many students are unhappy."

Roommate Conflicts

As September passed, students on Michigan State University's campus began to settle in to the environment and "show their true colors." 

Between screaming matches, language barriers, and party hard roommates; the girls of East Shaw Hall had plenty to complain about, and complain they did. 

Resident Mentor Maria Lipari has only dealt with five conflicts during her three years of mentoring she said, but that all changed this year. 

As the first semester is coming to a close, Lipari has already dealt with about three unrelated instances of roommate conflicts, but students may wonder whether her laid back attitude is due to lack of interest or just an interesting way of handling conflict. 

Students go to their mentors for many reasons, but when there is a roommate conflict, it is usually best to just stay out of it, said Lipari. 

Despite her nonchalant demeanor, Brynne Ewing said that Lipari handled the situation well when it came to her roommate conflict situation by trying to mediate conversations, which eventually led to a room swap between seven different residents. 

Transitional Housing made trying to find new rooms difficult for Lipari's residents, but after deciding to swap roommates between three separate rooms, the situation had been resolved, at least for the time being. 

The fact that virtually no rooms are open according to MSU's Housing Office begs the question, why did this happen and why are students spending so much money on housing costs when they are stuck in uncomfortable situations if they do not get along well with their roommates?