Tensions are escalating, boundaries are blurring, and tempers are flaring as students clash over shared bedrooms, colonized common rooms, and personal space. These housing disputes continue to shake up dorm life and test the limits of cohabitation.
Living arrangements for the Class of 2028 vary widely across campus, with each first-year dorm offering unique amenities and room configurations. Considering the variability of everything from hallway singles to four-bedroom suites, students are given the opportunity to voice their preferences and priorities before the school year officially starts, by taking a mandatory housing form. First-year students are asked to rank their cleanliness and sociability, as well as list the attributes of their ideal roommate. Despite best efforts to be thorough, many students still find themselves with either incompatible roommates or undesirable living configurations—the truly unlucky are navigating both.
When there are clear disconnects between roommates’ living habits, housing disputes inevitably unfold. One first-year student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, recounted their experience with this struggle in an interview with the Independent.
“I think, overall, Harvard did a really bad job of pairing [my roommate and I] together because we actually showed each other what we had submitted in our roommate form when we were applying for roommates, and they were completely different,” they said. “I had assumed that I was going to be put with someone with a similar sleep schedule. Otherwise, I would have requested a single. Other than that, there were things socially, where I had wanted a very social dorm, where I could bring people over and use the common room as a shared space, but she had kind of wanted our suite to just be for our use.”
They also attributed the tension to the forced proximity in their double—a sentiment many students can relate to. In fact, most Harvard students find that the bunk-bed life is not for them.
“The dorm that we were placed in, it’s the size of a single where they just stack a bunk bed in it. I think that putting anyone in a room that small, for people living in such close quarters, if you get up at different times of day, if you go to bed at different times of day, if you just have very different schedules to begin with, it’s gonna be an issue,” they remarked.
However, there is no ideal solution for students faced with this issue. In most Harvard first-year dorms, in order to debunk the beds, the entire suite must agree on relinquishing the common room and using it as an additional bedroom. The decision of whether to preserve a bunked double or give up the common room is often quite difficult, especially when suitemates have contrasting living preferences. Different sleep schedules, opinions on hosting others in the room, and more all contribute to the complexity of such a choice.
When prompted to reflect on the driving force of her roommate tensions, the freshman concluded it was a fundamental disconnect in enthusiasm for the space. “We were really treating the suite like a home, whereas she was kind of using it as a hotel,” they shared.
Despite initial disagreements, the freshman, along with their other roommate, contest that there is no longer any bad blood. “I really like her. The only problem was we couldn’t live together, but we are friends now, so everything is good.”
Another freshman who lives in a different dorm and also chose to remain anonymous, experienced a similar housing conflict. “My roommates already took and claimed a bed without me there. It was just hard to compromise on a good solution for all of us,” they said. After the suitemates could not agree on who would get which room, as well as a fair orientation of the beds, they asked their proctor to get involved before one student eventually chose to move out.
“The proctor did try and have us talk without the parents, which actually was helpful. And then, basically how I moved was I talked to the dean,” they detailed. “At first, I tried asking them if they wanted to do some rotation thing where we rotate rooms halfway through, but they didn’t want to do that, since they didn’t want to take down all of their stuff. I was like, ‘Oh, we could also maybe move some beds to the common room,’ but they didn’t want to do that either,” they said. “And this was pretty early on, so I just figured, honestly, at this point, it might just be easier to move because it was already just kind of tense, and they’re all super nice. I still talk to them, but I kind of figured it’d just be better to start new.”
In most cases like these, proctors and resident deans facilitate the settlement process. In an interview with the Independent, one proctor described the benefit of reaching out for help.
“When there’s a lot of disagreement and bad faith, it helps to have a neutral third person. Someone who both of the students can trust and has both of their interests in mind,” they said. In thinking about how to prevent these situations in the first place, they emphasized the importance of having a thorough roommate agreement.
“The more that you spend as a roommate group discussing the roommate agreements, the more likely it is that you have looked at all the nitty-gritty. One of the issues that I would recommend for students to really look at is room rotation at the end of the term or in the middle of the semester because that potentially causes a lot of problems,” said the proctor.
Confronted with the realities of dorm life, students are adapting by learning how to coexist with others and make the best of their living situations. One of the aforementioned freshmen noted that although they have had a difficult time acclimating themselves to college living, they have grown a lot as a person.
“At the end of the day, you’ve gotta roll with the punches. Things are going to be hard, everybody has different opinions, so it won’t always be easy to agree. I had a tough time for a bit, but learning to communicate and find middle ground is, I feel like, what college is all about.”
Wessal Bakry ’28 (wessalbakry@college.harvard.edu) is comping the Independent.