In this article Dalton Conley discuss why students should not be able to choose their roommate, and how important is to share with someone that you did not choose. Moreover, to prove his points the author tells us about his roommate, and how having a random roommate can affect our education and future marriage. First, Conley tells us how he wanted to change his life in college. He wanted someone who knew how to party, but ended up with Tony. Tony was a guy with great taste of music, really quiet, and had different beliefs than Mr. Conley. However, they got to know each other better and the author thinks it was a great experience. Second, the author is concerned because students prefer order and control over randomness, and that is why
“Wes was so confused. He loved and respected his brother. Tony was the closest thing Wes had to a role model. But the more he tried to be like his brother, the more Tony pushed back.” (72) Wes then got his girlfriend pregnant 4 times and dropped out of school to help out with her. With multiple arrests for shooting someone and drug dealing. Tony his "so called role model" helped Wes rob a jewelry store and they were convicted for murdering Sergeant Prothero along the way. Tony's motives were right but he never really got across to Wes with leading him in the right direction. Tony tried to push Wes away from the drug game but Wes was to drawn to it.
In the end, Tony plays the role of both hero and villain. His wife, Marcela, represents both the whore and the virgin Mexican-American. The both prove unfaithful: Tony to America and Marcela to Mexico. Herein lays the schizophrenic world in which good and bad coexist across the borders of two emerging world countries struggling for control of land and culture. There’s a price to be paid for such human greed and unrealistic expectations. Ultimately it proves to be a place where virtue doesn’t remain intact and villains abound, even among the good guys!
Tony did not want his younger brother to follow in his footstep but “Tony was now full-time in the streets, splitting his time between his father’s and girlfriend’s apartments in the Murphy Homes Project. He was a veteran of the drug game at eighteen”(The Other Wes Moore 57). Tony lived a life of crime when he became a drug dealer which earned money for him as a leaving. Though it did create a source of income for the struggling family, this was a very negative example for the young Other Wes to live by. As a result of not having any other people to help guide him to a successful path to living, Other Wes reverted to living by Tony’s destructive actions. Inevitably, Other Wes joined Tony on the streets selling various drugs as a career. His street life consumed his entire life so much he eventually dropped out of high school to concentrate on selling drugs. His illegal activities became so detrimental to his life that it resulted in prison on multiple occasions due to drug deals and firing a handgun. The role Tony had on Wes contributed towards the actions and downfall of Other Wes. His life could be the same, however, a different role model could have drastically changed his mindset and kept him off the streets which resulted in him living a destructive and
Our literature review consisted of six scholarly articles that were studies done on students who were going into college. The first article that we found focused on how important communication is when it comes to making friends. McEwan & Guerrero (2010) talked about the benefits of communication before getting to know someone. We based our questions off of this article regarding communication in order to find out about roommate interactions.
Colombo explains that “Beginning college can be disconcerting experience” (Colombo, p.1). That there will be more peer pressure from your peers and an increase expectations that you have never faced during your high school days. “In the dorms you may find yourself among people whose backgrounds make them seem foreign and unapproachable” (Colombo, p.1). Colombo also states “If you commute, you may be struggling against a feeling of isolation that you’ve never faced before” (Colombo, p. 1).
The diversity comes along with the friends one keeps and how their friends influence their social behaviors. College offers a chance for learning different and most often new perspectives in life and also provides a platform for bridging the students’ divides or differences. It provides the students with a new opportunity to construct their lives a fresh irrespective of their initial lives in high school. However, most of the students do not take advantage of the diversity in college but instead try to make the college life as comfortable as possible. They try to stick to their high school way of life as much as possible instead of exploring a different lifestyle. They tend to replicate their friends from high school, and join groups that are similar to the ones they previously belonged to in high school. Instead of taking advantage of the diverse networking opportunity available in college, they keep friends who are not diverse in their perceptions and way of life. “They prefer to keep friends who share the same ideas and believe as theirs and thus their characters turn into lifelong habits that stick even after they leave school for the employment world”
College can be a scarce transition for individuals, especially for the ones who have lived at home their whole lives. While college is said to be one of the best experiences, there are negative factors that eventually add up. Students who live under their parents roofs or attend high school, usually have their day-to-days lives planned. A typical day in the life of a student may be going to school for eight hours, participating in an activity after school, coming home to a home-cooked meal, and going to bed. Where, college is the first year a student may experience more independence and a non-planned agenda. Most individuals know when going to college they’re going to miss the familiar feeling of their hometown, home-made meals, and their own
Roommates are inevitable for most college students and young adults. With the economy in trouble more and more people are deciding to live with roommates in order to save money. This can often lead to disagreements, feuds, and misery. You can’t always find the perfect roommates but there are some rules everyone should set before moving in together. Recently I conducted a survey. The survey was handed out to thirty college students ranging from the ages of eighteen to twenty-three. In this poll they decided on the ten most important rules that are basic for every living situation.
Requiring students to live in university-approved housing has several benefits. For instance, living in a dorm-like environment has positive effects on student’s academic performance. Students that live on-campus have higher levels of “engagement” in university activities, and as a result have higher grade point averages, and a greater appreciation of their college experience (LaNasa, Olson, & Alleman, 2007). This is particularly true with freshmen. First year students that participate in “First-Year Experience” programs are more likely to remain at the university, and have higher grade point averages. These programs have stronger results for students who both particpate in these programs, and live on campus (Jamel, 2009). These programs are comprised of courses which familarize students with a colledge education, equip them with skills to make the most of that education, fortifies the university-student relationship, encorages participation in activies outside the class room, and improves student responsibilitity (Jamel, 2009, p. 378...
In your first year of college, the decision of living at home versus living in a dorm/apartment is a very hard one to make. The two are very different in how you take on responsibility. In a dorm or apartment, you have to break away from the chain of constantly having a parent/guardian be around to help you take on responsibility. You have to be in charge of getting up for class, keeping grades up, managing your sleep and social life, and how you take care of your surroundings. This can all be satisfying because you’re getting out of your comfort zone and preparing for the real world. However, living at home is another option. When you live at home, you c...
This seemingly carefree woman who, like him, has abandoned a life of obligation in pursuit of a life of personal fulfillment, temporarily provides Tony with the confidence to embrace life. His brief attempt to be social results in a profession of deep discontent as he drunkenly rambles about the former life of Arthur Hamilton. The problem with this new life is that while Tony looks different and has a different job and has no family, he still possesses the mind and memories of Arthur Hamilton. This is further proven by his disappointing return home, where he claims that he wants to paint a picture of Arthur, but he only knows what the man looked like. Tony learns from his old wife that Arthur Hamilton had been a quiet man who "had been dead a long time" before he had been found dead. After this experience, Tony accepts that he has failed at his second life, and he swears that next time, he will be more successful; next time, he will make the important decisions for himself. He claims that as Arthur Hamilton, he chased after what everyone told him was important; Tony Wilson only followed the company's will, right down to developing a relationship with Nora, who had been placed near his home to ensure his successful transition; but next time—next time, he would do what mattered to him. It is rather unfortunate that despite his apparent growth as a character, Tony is labeled a mistake by the company and is killed for later use as a cadaver for future lost souls,
In conclusion, the school should solve the housing problems for students regarding cost and small dormitories. To do so, the school should contract with apartments near Seattle central or extend the small dormitory. Furthermore, the school should stand up for student’s positions. The school should acknowledge the necessities of needing to improve these problems. If these problems are solved, students can put all their effort into studying and the school can retain competent students.
According to the article "Development of Friendship Between Roommates", there are some crucial factors for researching a study such as this one, conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles(otherwise known as UCLA). These factors include making sure that the social exchange processes, equity, similarity and self-disclosure are all studied jointly. Another factor that was extremely important was that of time dimension, because "friendships are extended in time and because each of those processes is proposed to change as a friendship develops" (346). Altman and Taylor hypothesized that "over time persons engage in increasingly intimate self-disclosure" (346).
Between the articles of Dowd and Conley one can clearly see the benefits that go along with entering college with a randomly selected roommate. Whether it is preparing for marriage, or simply preparing for the stubborn people who you will meet in life, and you will meet plenty of those, that first year of college is key in ones preparation for those situations. So forget the ‘perfect roommate’ dream, it is an unattainable and frankly foolish one to have. It is the imperfection and serendipity that seamlessly makes the experience perfect.
I researched other colleges to see how roommates were paired. The colleges I researched were: Albright, Bucknell, Virginia Tech, Saint Joseph’s University, Millersville, and University of Pittsburgh. At Albright, Bucknell, and University of Pittsburgh the housing administration requires incoming freshmen to fill out a survey that asks about their sleep patterns (early bird/ night owl), taste in music, if they smoke, their qualities of an ideal roommate, pet peeves, and major. This enables the housing administration to effectively match up freshmen that would be compatible with each other. My friend Maureen, who attends Bucknell, said, “My roommate and I have become best friends and I am so thankful that we were matched together. I think that all colleges should use surveys to match up freshmen. The summer before my freshmen year, I was less nervous about meeting my roommate, because I knew that even if we were not the best of friends, I knew we would be compatible enough to live together.