by Kate Crofts
Daily Lobo
An unfortunate reality of living on campus is that many students will not get along with their roommates.
But UNM's Housing Department uses a calculated system to make sure students selected to live together are as compatible as possible.
Robert Schulte, business director of housing at UNM, said the department puts incoming residents through a process that asks questions about themselves and their habits in order to match them with a similar personality.
Schulte said residents are asked questions regarding their smoking habits, age, music tastes and study habits.
"We try to group together people that we think are compatible," Schulte said. "Not necessarily people who are exactly alike, but whose personalities compliment one another."
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The students' personal preferences are then entered into a computer equipped with a program that processes the information along with a student's class status and ethnicity. The program collates the information and matches students into compatible groups, Schulte said.
Elizabeth Ramirez, a freshman campus resident, said she has already benefited from the characteristics she shares with her new roommate.
"Our shared musical and academic preferences make it a lot easier so we don't argue," Ramirez said. "We have a class together so we can talk about that."
Many campus residents are unsure of the success of the roommate-matching program.
Adam Liessman, a resident adviser in Hokona Hall, one of UNM's nine on-campus dormitories, said for every personality characteristic taken into consideration, several are overlooked. Factors such as cleanliness, moodiness, beliefs and attitudes are not figured into the equation, he said.
Liessman said this semester three to four residents at Hokona Hall have requested room changes, citing their roommate as their reason to move.
Liessman said students who are seemingly a good match might not always get along.
Personality clashes, he said, are what most often cause people to want to change rooms.
Schulte said of the more than 2,000 residents on campus, about 95 percent of them get along. The remaining 5 percent go their own ways or negotiate to improve the situations, he said.
Schulte conceded, though, that while the program has found a high success rate, it is "less than perfect."
A compatibility system based on preferences at the beginning of the semester could prove obsolete after a brief period of time living on campus, Schulte said.
He refers to this period as a "time of change in their lives," and points out a noted flaw in the system
"A freshman might come as a non-smoker and end up being a smoker by the end of the term," Schulte said.
Ramirez said she acknowledged the distinct possibility of rooming with someone different than her, but instead of dreading it, she openly welcomed it in hopes that she might experience something new and different.
"If someone listened to some totally different music and had a different outlook on life, it would be cool to get a chance to experience those things," Ramirez said.
