Marielle Genovesi- Culture Editor
It may seem apparent that college is an experience unlike any other. You have a roommate, an apartment, a landlord, neighbors, hall mates, etc. It essentially all comes down to the fact that you are rarely ever alone. Your “space bubble” becomes smaller and finding time to just relax alone is rare. The college culture is essentially a privacy deficient experience, but this is not necessarily a good or a bad thing, the pros and cons list is almost equal in length.
First things first, sharing a room is actually pretty awesome for a number of reasons. If you think about it, rooming with a friend is like a never ending sleepover, and sleepovers were, and will always be, awesome. Sharing a room also means that you have to learn how to live with others, how to take care of a space, manage your schedule and how to deal with someone else in general. Which leads me to point out that sharing your room with someone else can also seriously suck. Sometimes, you just want and need space, to think, to be alone, to relax; too much of any one person can and probably will drive you up the f**cking wall.
Then let’s consider how much time you spend with the same group of friends. You most likely eat together, hang out together and maybe even go to class with the same people almost every day. Again, pretty awesome for the most part, but also kind of overwhelming. People stop by your room to hang out unexpectedly, or show up at your front door for a drink, and you will most likely stop what you were doing (whether it be school work, a good book or a great movie) to enjoy their company.
It is safe to say that anything goes when the drinks are flowing, the house party is raging and the bar is packed. It’s not your personal space that is a problem here, but rather the fact that anything ridiculous or stupid enough to attract attention will probably be captured on Snapchat or Instragram, then put on Facebook or Twitter. Yes, most of this stuff is harmless and totally great to laugh over the next day, but of course it can also become terrible, regrettable and hurtful. Never before have you truly had to worry about how often your most embarrassing and crazy moments are recorded by others.
We may not think about how public our private lives are, because to us college kids, privacy is rare and not really considered as anything one should be concerned with. It is strange and also kind of funny that we have become accustomed to life surrounded by others for a majority of the day, so much so that it almost seems too quiet when you are home, and wide awake in the middle of the night unable to fall asleep without the obnoxious snores of your roommate.
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