How early you wake up, cleanliness, what time you go to bed and smoking habits – all of these are aspects that factor into how Residential Life matches students with the perfect mate to share a room in the dorms.

Wade Redeker, director of Residential Life, said their computers are able to start matching roommates based on their responses to these lifestyle questions, but the process becomes more complicated after that.

“It gets more complicated when you get into, ‘Are they an athlete and they want to live with someone in particular, are they interested in those communities?’…so that takes a little bit of a personal touch,” said Amanda Meek, housing coordinator for Residential Life. Meek said matching roommates is like a puzzle.

“I like to think of it as a Rubik’s Cube,” Meek said.

Meek said they do the best they can to match students with a compatible roommate. Smoking, she said, is one of the key factors they take into consideration with housing contracts because “a smoker and a non-smoker never works out.”

Carrie Kellie, freshman marketing major, has known her roommate Dominique Staats, freshman psychology major, for nine years and decided to request Staats as a roommate because she was easygoing and had the same morals.

“We have a lot of the same friends, and we get along really well,” Kellie said. “Also, knowing each other for a long time has made us have good communication.”

Meek said that placements occur on a first-come, first-serve basis, and students who turn in their contracts later are more likely not to get what they requested. She also said the gender of floors may change from year to year based on the amount of males and females enrolled.

Meek said she recognizes that living in the residence halls can make or break one’s experience at Emporia State.

“I try my very best to set people up to have the most successful experience possible, and if they’re having an issue, we definitely try to work with them,” Meek said.

Katlin Fuel, freshman history education major, said that she and her first roommate got along well, but she didn’t have as much luck with her second roommate.

“After a minor conflict that was made into a major one, I moved into my own room at the dorms,” Fuel said.

But Redeker said that even if a roommate experience isn’t ideal, students can always learn something from the situation. This was the case for Fuel.

“If it weren’t for my bad roommate, I wouldn’t be as determined to fight for what I think is right,” Fuel said.

Kellie said the method for choosing roommates is beneficial because the housing contract asks about lifestyles and if roommates have the same lifestyle choices, then they will get along. But Fuel said that she does not think it is very effective.

“When you fill that out, you’re not really being honest and don’t want to seem outrageous or rude,” Fuel said. “After a few weeks, you see how your roommate really is.”

Redeker said the method is very comparable to what other universities use.

“We want people to have as good of an experience as possible,” Redeker said.

To fill out a housing contract with Residential Life for the 2013-2014 school term, visit Emporia.edu/reslife.