Close friends or not, sharing your living space can pose challenges.
Boarding students at Williston face the fun—and sometimes challenging—requirement of having a roommate to share their living space with. The experience largely depends on the nature of their relationship, whether they’re close friends or simply just get along well.
Before students officially join the Williston community, the school provides a survey on specific situations or the type of lifestyle you would be comfortable with another person. This could go either way: you meet your next best friend for the next four years or you just simply have a civil relationship and nothing more.
Mel McCullough, a junior, roomed with fellow junior Maya Vulakh, who she gets along well with.
“Fortunately, my roommate and I, Maya, have always had a strong connection,” Mel said. “We are very different, but somehow still find a way to complement each other. While most roommates are not best friends, and that seems to work [fine], Maya and I were able to become close because of being roommates and I am very thankful for that.
Mel partly attributes her positive time at Williston to the strong relationship she has with her roommate.
“She is one of my favorite people and my experiences on campus are better because I have her,” Mel said.
For two years, Mel and Maya lived in Wold House and Mem East, but are now both living separately as proctors. Mel also said how most might idealize having a single room because it can be challenging to share living space with a non-family member.
However, in their case, being in the same friend group and roommates to separate dorms had taken a toll on them. Both Mel and Maya are planning to live together again as proctors in EMV as roommates and best friends, because they found a way to balance their lifestyle in one single room. Opposites attract worked in their favor.
Skyler Walker, a junior, roomed with Sylvia Nguyen during her freshmen year.
“Sylvia and I are friendly now but when we were roommates it was a little different,” Skyler told The Willistonian. “We had a difficult time liking each other because of how hard it was to agree with each other in our room.”
Since Skyler and Sylvia stopped rooming, they have gotten closer.
“When we were roommates freshman year we were not close at all because of our differences in opinions. But now that we are separate, I love to say hi to her and catch up every so often,” she said.
Opposingly, Skyler and Sylvia didn’t have the same connection as Mel and Maya. The difference is good between two people but sometimes in situations like this, it can bring people apart. Skyler told The Willistonian that their differing opinions regarding their room distanced their relationship. Their differences included messiness, different priorities regarding sports or academics, sociability in the room, and more.
However, in their sophomore and junior years, they separated as roommates and grew to love each other because of that. In comparison, even though Skyler and Sylvia weren’t in the same friend group, their friendship rooted from the silly arguments they had freshman year and bonded ever since.
