Roommate Roulette

The moment that defined my freshman year was not move-in day—it was a late July sweaty afternoon. Arriving at a babysitting gig drenched in sweat from my 30-block walk to Union Square, I had known that it was the day our freshman rooming assignments were supposed to be released. But it was already 3:50 p.m., and I was starting to get nervous. Even though I knew the impulse to constantly refresh my Gmail would not make the email appear any sooner, I could not resist. 

Why have they not come out yet? 

I dreaded the thought of waiting another day for the announcement. All of my friends at other colleges had known who their roommates would be for months already. They had met their future roommates for coffee and coordinated their dorms from the bed sheets to the wall art. Honestly, I was jealous. I craved having that same safety net for freshman year. 

About 10 minutes later, after an intense round of “Just Dance” with the five-year-old I was babysitting, my phone began to buzz incessantly. I looked and saw multiple messages from a group chat of other incoming freshmen I had met at Visitas. 

Canaday! Pennypacker! Weld! Wigglesworth! 

Confused, I sifted through their messages, struggling to decode the jargon. What does Oak Yard mean? After a few minutes of skimming the hundreds of notifications, I checked my email. And there it was—the email labeled: “Your Housing Assignment.” Huge bubble letters sprawled across the screen as I clicked the message open. Welcome to Ivy Yard, Pippa! Quickly I scrolled through to see the rest of the details. There it was at last—what felt like the fate of my first year of college. 

Ivy Yard, Holworthy West, three roommates, two rooms, in-suite bathroom. 

A rush surged through my body, and all of a sudden, my stomach felt like it had flipped inside out. What if I do not like my roommates? What if they are crazy? What if they do not like me?

Now, a year out from receiving that email, I can confidently say that I could not be more grateful for my random rooming experience. When I walked into my Holworthy dorm for the first time, I expected awkwardness and forced small talk—after all, we were strangers to each other. But, within the first hour of talking to my roommates, I let out a sigh of relief. They were kind, funny, and more similar to me than I had expected. On paper, we were all quite different—from New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and Turkey—but, at the end of the day, we were all 18-year-old girls, nervous about the next four years in this new unfamiliar environment.

Over the nine months that followed, we spent nights sprawled across the common room floor, passing around bags of Trader Joe’s Takis, venting about the latest “LS 1a” p-set, or debriefing the latest plot-twists in our social lives—ending and beginning relationships alike. We celebrated each other’s biggest victories, weathered the most deplorable of lows, and shared the mundanity of everything in between. Even though we were in differing social circles, I knew all the characters in their stories, all the drama—and they knew mine just as well. Whenever I felt upset, there was always a hug waiting for me, tissues in hand. I owe three built-in friends to random housing, and I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. 

Despite my happy ending, this experience is just one version of the random roommate lottery. For some, it’s the beginning of enduring friendships—the kind that last a lifetime. For others, freshman year rooming becomes a crash course in patience, boundaries, and noise-canceling headphones. The truth is, the first year of college brings together people from every corner of the world. The results can be…unpredictable. I interviewed five students with varying experiences with the random roommate system, hoping to offer a glimpse into the spectrum of what Harvard students have lived through.

1. The Hot Pot

For some students, the biggest adjustment isn’t personality differences—it’s culinary ventures taking place at 2 a.m. One student recalls a particular…aromatic experience:

“I would go to bed at night, and be soundly asleep—as all Harvard students know you cannot take your sleep for granted—and I would be dreaming about the most random things…being on a beach or doing well on my finals or whatever it was…and all of a sudden, I would just have these strange aromatic experiences where the taste or the smell of Cajun, cinnamon and paprika was just under my nose.”

Turns out, it wasn’t a dream. It was her roommate, crockpotting full-blown stews at 2 a.m. Cajun stews. Cinnamon. Paprika.

Her review: “Literally, heinous behavior.”

Frankly, I’m still trying to figure out what recipe calls for both Cajun seasoning and cinnamon. That feels like a crime in at least three states. If you think that sounds like a nightmare, don’t worry—the roommate lottery is not always this foul. 

2. Inseparable

Not every story is about conflict. For some students, a random room assignment turns into an instant connection.

“The process worked out better than I could have hoped. I was fortunate to genuinely connect with all three of my roommates—each truly made my first year better.”

But the real highlight? Her direct roommate, Amanda.

“We clicked right off the bat. After our long days of pre-orientation, we’d spend hours talking in our room, never running out of things to say. We lived separate lives for maybe a week before becoming inseparable. I knew she was going to be my best friend the day I was lying on the common room floor, scrolling on my phone, and she asked to join me—without a hint of judgment. We went from rotting on the floor together to hour-long study sessions to spontaneous Cane’s and Crumbl runs to traveling together.”

But of course, not every pair becomes inseparable. Sometimes, what brings you closer is the shared trauma of surviving someone else’s habits.

3. Stinky Socks

One student summed up their experience in two words: sensory. overload.

“My freshman year roommate was [redacted], not by choice, but by the spin of the random roommate and room wheel. At first, everything was fine and clean. I thought it was going to be alright. Then the socks appeared. Pairs, singles, mystery colors scattered like breadcrumbs across the floor.”

Unfortunately, that was not even the worst of it.

“Then came the used tissues. Everywhere. On the bed, the dresser, the floor…”

The final straw? The smell.

“Imagine damp mold crossed with I don’t know what,” he explained. “I bought an air purifier, thinking it’d save me or at least make it better. It didn’t. Every morning, I’d wake up congested, foggy, and slightly nauseous. I didn’t feel human again until after my shower and a walk outside.”

He eventually moved in with another roommate from the suite—someone who ended up becoming one of his closest friends that year.

4. Bonding

For this student, the magic of random assignment was in the unexpected nature of the connections. 

“Of course, it’s a little bit scary going in, having to live with people that you’ve never met before, and having to spend a lot of your time with not necessarily your closest friends in the beginning. But I think that it was so rewarding and important, and I’m really happy that we have random roommates, just because I feel like I’ve made friendships that I probably wouldn’t have made before.”

Friend groups ebb and flow throughout the year, but random roommates are always there. She described nights when the entire suite would gather by accident in the common room.

“There were five of us [in my dorm], and it was super rare that we ever ended up being in the room at the same time doing the same thing. Every once in a while, there would be times where we were all sitting at our desks in the common room and would all just start talking about our lives and our classes and various different things going on. Especially at the end of the year, we started spending more time together. We talked about different houses and what we wanted, Harvard as a whole, just reflecting on it. I feel like it was so important and impactful for all of us to just realize each other’s lives were real.”

Unlike Inseparable, this girl did not end up becoming best friends with any of her four roommates—and that’s okay. Not everyone is going to become best friends, but what matters is finding support systems with different people. It’s easy to become caught up in your own world during your first year in college, but it’s important to remember that most people around you are going through the same things, struggling with the same p-sets, and maybe even overanalyzing and re-reading the same texts. 

5.  The Big Gamble

Ultimately, random roommates are a gamble. All you can do is roll the dice, cross your fingers, and hope you don’t end up with a roommate making crockpot stews at 2 a.m. However, for some students, like this one, the gamble truly pays off. 

“I think it’s a really neat way of having everyone on the same playing field in terms of getting to know people socially. So it was a lot of fun. It is, of course, a big gamble. So I had three other roommates, two of whom became some of my best friends. I’ve been living with them the past two years.”

He and his roommates did FOP together, which gave them the time to get to know each other before moving in. 

“It was great getting to navigate the hurricane of freshman fall together. I think that really brought us closer together, and we had a lot of cool experiences, like throwing parties, figuring out what classes we wanted to take together, and comping clubs together.”

 “It’s fun having people in your corner when you don’t really know anyone else in the first few weeks.”

I reflect back upon that sweaty July day in Union Square, refreshing my inbox like my life depended on it. I had no idea who would be on the other side of that email—or how much they would matter. A year later, I know this much: the randomness was not chaos in disguise. It was a chance. And sometimes, chances give you exactly what you didn’t know you needed. 

For those heading into freshman year, nervous about sharing a room, go in with an open mind—you never know who might end up becoming a lifelong friend.

Pippa Lee ’28 (pippalee@college.harvard.edu) is so excited to live with her three best friends this year.