For students, affordable housing often means sharing the financial burdens with a roommate. While a roommate can turn your student life into an amazing adventure, he or she can also make it a living hell.

You have every right to be comfortable and enjoy your time at home. Therefore, it is important to choose a roommate whose idea of comfort and enjoyment does not conflict with yours.

Alok Igoor Parashivamurth, Industrial engineering graduate student, has a roommate and agrees you should choose your roommate “based on how compatible they would be in the long run.”

Raghunathan Rahul Srinivas Srinivas, mechanical engineering graduate student, used a technical term to underline the importance of commonalities between roommates.

“Roommates must be of compatible wavelength,” he said.

To understand how UTA students have dealt with the compatibility issues, I asked 10 students to name the 10 things they would like to know before choosing a roommate:

1. Rent: Four people said the No. 1 thing they wanted to know was, “How is the rent split?” Another four also mentioned rent as a concern.
   It would be a good idea to discuss in advance different aspects of payment such as the amount each side will pay and the repercussions for late payment. You may also ask for their credit record to see if your future roommate is fiscally responsible. Tip: A person, who has maxed out his or her credit card twice during the past six months will probably miss a few payments.


2. Trust: It’s a no-brainer that nobody wants a thief in their home, students want a roommate they can trust with their material belongings as well as their secrets.
   You don’t want a roommate who will go through your diaries while you are not home and post your personal moments on Facebook. You may ask your potential roommate for references, and you can talk to his or her friends to see how much they trust him or her.


3. Conflict management: No matter how well you are matched with your roommate, there will come a time when you will disagree over something. Sometimes the disagreement is over something fundamentally important, sometimes you’re just having a bad day and get mad over minor incidents. That is why a good majority of students I talked to want to know how their future roommates will handle conflicts.
   There is no fool-proof way to know how someone will act under certain circumstances. Sometimes people react irrationally in the heat of the moment. The best way to have a general idea would be to ask your future roommate about his or her most recent argument and how it was resolved. Tip: If they tell you they have never had an argument, they are probably misplacing facts, which is a red flag you might want to look into.


4. Cleaning: All of us at one point or another left the table after we were finished eating without lifting a finger. Well, some UTA students I spoke to fear many might still have that habit. So they want to know if their future roommate cleans up after he or she eats.


5. Hygiene: I don’t know if you are surprised or not, but I was surprised this ranked fifth. I think hygiene should take precedence over everything else – although, I may make an exception for rent. Let me paint a picture for you, better yet, let Milena Vuksanovic, political science graduate student, paint it for you.
   “My former roommate used to wax her legs in the kitchen – no kidding – with the spoon that we ate with. And [she used to] wash her dirty laundry in the kitchen sink. Oh yeah! Horrible!” Vuksanovic said.
   If that didn’t convince you to move hygiene up in your list, I don’t know what will.


6. Food Policy: Half of the students I talked to wanted to know their future roommate’s stance on food policy. Is he or she willing to share food, or at least certain basic supplies? Is he or she willing to share grocery shopping responsibilities or is it going to be “every man for himself?”


7. Communication: Students are also concerned with the social traits of their future roommate. It appears that most of them would like to live with a communicative person, someone friendly and outgoing. But they’re also concerned that their future roommate might talk too much.
   In a nutshell, we all know that “man is a social animal,” but sometimes we just need some quiet time to study, or reflect and we don’t want somebody constantly talking to us.


8. Drinking and smoking: Both already banned or shunned on campus to begin with, but it is fairly reasonable that they are the concerns of many students who live off campus. Some students have problems with alcohol for religious reasons, while some want to make sure that their future roommate is OK with drinks in the house. The same goes for indoor smoking. It has its proponents and opponents. If either of the two is important or annoying to you, make sure to include it in the list of things to ask your future roommate.


9. Sex: We all think about it, but only a few of us care to admit. I’m talking about whether your future roommate should be the same sex as you are or the opposite sex. We are all past gender differences and sexism, but in all honesty, some of us are not really comfortable sharing an apartment with a member of the opposite sex. The three people who mentioned it were all girls, who emphasized the importance of having a female roommate.


10. Tolerance: We talked about a lot of bad habits that a potential roommate might have, but we all know that each of us have a few dirty little habits too. A few students said that they want to know if their future roommate has the patience to deal with those habits.
    Some of the things you do might seem annoying to others — for instance, you like to listen to loud music or whistle constantly. It is good to lay it out in advance and see if your future roommate can get along with those habits. This will make both of your lives easier.

Choosing a roommate is a complicated process that cannot be summed up in 10 bullet points. If you are looking for a roommate, come up with a list of things that are important to you. Stay firm on items that are non-negotiable, but leave room for compromise on those less important to you. At the end of the day, the person you are considering as your future roommate has his or her own set of standards and has as much right to be comfortable at home as you.

Last Wednesday, I attended a banquet, hosted by the Political Science Department at the University Club.  Titled, “Celebration of Excellence 2012,” the event brought together faculty and staff members as well as about 40 political science students.

Political science assistant professor Brent Sasley opened the program with a recap of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope’s ending sequence. Spoiler Alert: Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Chewbacca make a long walk across the hall. Princess Leia awards medals to Skywalker and Solo for their bravery, but Chewbacca doesn’t receive anything. “It wasn’t fair to Chewbacca,” Sasley said, arguing that Chewbacca had co-piloted the Millennium Falcon along with Han Solo and deserved a medal as much as him.

Female Muslim students are typically distinguished by their wearing of Hijab, the Islamic dress code that requires them to wear a headscarf, or otherwise cover their heads, among other things. I always wondered if that affects the treatment they receive on campus.

To find out, I talked to several Muslim students to have a better understanding of their situation.

Housing is arguably the most important issue when it comes to moving to another country. International students have to consider so many different factors, like distance to university, laundry options and air conditioning before moving into their new residence.

UTA students have quite a few housing options. They may choose to reside in university housing or in third-party apartments. The Shorthorn has a comprehensive guide that can help students make a decision. But before they do, they might want to consider the following factors: