Students use social networking to find roomates

By Chelsea Brown
Special to The Johnsonian

Facebook is a growing social network many students on the Winthrop University campus use to connect with people from different countries, states and cities.  

The technology of Facebook is strengthening the closeness and availability of Winthrop services and offices, with Facebook groups for the Department of Residence Life, as well as the Office of Admissions.  

The  “Winthrop University Class of 2014” Facebook group page allowed  many of the entering freshmen to meet other incoming freshmen.

“The Facebook group allowed us to become closer with our roommate and connect well before move-in day,” said Cora Caldwell, freshman political science major.
    
Social networks such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and even video services Skype and ooVoo, a site that offers audio and video instant messaging,  have also allowed students to meet people who they would normally not be able to meet in person due to long distances.

It seems that people want to be able to “see” what their roommates are like before move-in day.

Lustra Miller, freshman dance performance major, agrees with the use of Facebook to find roommates.

“Everyone has their information on Facebook, and what you put on Facebook can say a lot about who you are,” Miller said. “I wouldn’t want to be a roommate with someone who had a bad representation on Facebook.”

Being able to see potential roommates’ likes, dislikes, pictures, and descriptions of themselves made searching for roommates feel more secure, Miller said.

“I ask more personal questions, and the roommate survey questions were too general,” she said. “I wanted to know more about her personality, music and movie tastes.”

Of the 1,145 new students who applied to Winthrop and for on-campus housing, 47 percent of the students have requested roommates, said director of Residence Life Cynthia Cassens.

The lifestyles indicator portion of the Winthrop roommate survey given to new students allows them to answer general questions about sleeping, social, cleaning and study habits.

“When the computer system is matching roommates, the first thing the system does is look for the people who requested roommates,” Cassens said. “After that, for those who turned in a roommate survey, the computer matches the students based on smoking or non-smoking preferences. Then, the computer does its best to match roommates based on the answers given on the survey.”

 But even Cassens knows the reality of rooming situations.

“Room changes vary from people who have requested roommates to those who filled out a survey,” she said. “At the same time, some people have found lifelong friends through the use of our survey.”