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Show 6 Monday August 20, 2012 OPINION www.dailyutahchronicle.com DEALING WITH "CATTY" ROOMMATES SALLY YOO/The Daily Utah Chronicle Roomie rules for all situations or obvious reasons, the people you live with have a tremendous impact on your life. If you have good roommates, your quality of life can be greatly improved, but if your roommate is bad, you'd better beware. I classify roommates into three categories: good, bad and absentee. A good roommate is someone who is respectful, clean and a good friend (but I do caution against living with a good friend as it can ruin a friendship). A bad roommate can make your life a living hell. He or she might be disrespectful, messy or someone you don't get along with because of personality differences. An absentee roommate is toler- F BEN HAYNES StaffWriter able to live with, respectful and relatively clean, but is not around most of the time. You will be cordial with this type of person because you live with them and generally will not have many conversations that go past pleasantries. This type of roommate is perfectly acceptable, but doesn't really make your life any better — they simply just don't make it bad. But what do you do when you end up with one of these bad roommates? Anyone and everyone can be a bad roommate, but it really depends on what you are willing to put up with — and your personality. There are people who have the patience of Job and can get along with everyone. If you are not one of these people, you're not alone. The first things you have to do are set boundaries and ask the uncomfortable questions that are necessary to know. For instance, ask your roommate about their sex life, drug use and drinking habits and what you can expect from them throughout the semester. One of the biggest boundaries to set is which things are community property and which are personal property. When people use your things and don't respect your space, it gets old quickly. Don't be afraid to hurt feelings or confront your roommate. Confrontations can be scary, but a small one beats months of being uncomfortable because you didn't tell your roommate your toothbrush is off-limits. Social interactions with your friends, significant others and family are key. Make sure that you lay down expectations ahead of time. Encourage your roommate to introduce himself and to feel free to hang out with you and your pals, or tell him you need the room for the night. If your roommate has habits your family won't approve of, you might want to ask him to refrain from those habits until your family, friends or significant others are gone. There are proper ways to confront someone. Be respectful when you confront your roommate — ask him to do things, don't tell. Most of all, listen to your roommate and his point of view. Communication can solve everyone's problems if it is honest, respectful and a two-way street. letters@ chronicle.utah.edu Get relevant experience Fall Break is better and volunteer with a than longer summer local political campaign A w hat is your relevant work experience?" "Uh..." Sound familiar? Chances are you need some relevant work experience. Ever considered interning for a local campaign? Well, you should. It's a quick, easy way to gain experience for your résumé, get in some last credits to fill your schedule and make a difference in your community. A campaign requires a diverse array of skill sets. There are communicators, financiers, media experts, computer professionals, researchers, policy people and a gazillion other needed professionals — this isn't just for political science majors. Any student from any major can apply to work at a campaign because chances are there is some project that is relevant to every field of study. Additionally, a campaign is a great way to earn relevant work experience. This is particularly true of smaller, local campaigns, in which candidates are dependent on a force of volunteers. This gives ample opportunities to gain real work experience for students like us. As a U student, you can get the added benefit of receiving internship credit for working on political campaigns. The Hinckley Institute of Politics, located in OSH, has an amazing internship program. The institute can help set you up with internships on campaigns so you can attain college credit for your volunteer hours. Volunteering or interning on a local campaign means you could make a real difference in local politics and your community. We should care more about local politics than national because a lot of federal policies might not directly affect us in our everyday lives like local ones do. gg ARIELLE NEWMAN StaffWriter For example, your Salt Lake County mayor will have a direct affect on your life as a U student, from the roads you drive, to the schools you attend, to the cost of the groceries you buy, to the cost of a round of golf. Whether you plan on staying here after graduation or heading off to conquer the world, as long as you are here in the Salt Lake Valley, the candidates running for local positions will have a direct impact on your daily life. So have a bigger say in choosing your representatives. Get involved, U students. Go be a volunteer for a few hours for a campaign or set up an internship with the Hinckley Institute. The campaigns are recruiting right now and are desperate for young, enthusiastic students. There are numerous options, including state and national legislatures as well as the contested race for Salt Lake County mayor and the race for the governor's seat. Each and every campaign presents a variety of opportunities for students to boost their résumé, get an internship and change the local political scene. You can drop by the Hinckley Institute's office or visit http://www. hinckley.utah.edu/internships/index . html for more information about setting up campaign internships. Help yourself and your state. Intern now letters@ chronicle.utah.edu s most of us are painfully aware, U students start school a week earlier than practically every other college or university in the state of Utah. While the rest of the collegiate population revels in their final week of freedom, we at the U are picking up textbooks, filling out parking forms and starting the procrastination process. On the other hand, maybe it's not all that bad. Having had their fill of summer jobs or unstructured leisure time, many students are ready to get back in the groove of school work. Even if you cannot count yourself as one such positive pupil, do not despair. Starting school a week early is bearable with the knowledge of what we get in exchange — Fall Break. A tradition cherished by U students throughout time, Fall Break at the U is uniquely lengthy. Whereas many schools will throw their students a token day off in the middle of October, our university has kindly arranged for five days free of classes. With weekends CLAIRE SORENSEN StaffWriter on either side, that gives us nine days of uninterrupted vacation. This great privilege has not gone unnoticed, nor without envy from our peers throughout Utah. Like our southern neighbor BYU, USU has only one day for "Fall Break." There are others, such as Utah Valley University, that will grant an additional day on top of that. Kelsey Edman, a junior in elementary education at UVU, is content with her two-day intermission. "I like having a break in the middle to calm down and relax a little bit," she said. However, she would not mind if it were longer. "When I only went to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, The Daily Utah Chronicle I hated it because I felt like I was only getting one day off," Edman said. One day, two days — it doesn't matter much, compared to the huge break that is ours. Edman only has time to calm down and relax a little bit, whereas U students can use the nine-day hiatus as a superb travel and learning opportunity. Whether independently or with programs such as the Bennion Center's Alternative Fall Break, U students have plenty of time to visit new and uncrowded places while everyone else is otherwise occupied. I have heard the occasional complaint about Fall Break. It's true, it can throw off your school-time routine pretty severely, and it does indeed cut into summer vacation. If you ask me, it is a little painful to leave summer behind so much sooner than everyone else. But do the possibilities of Fall Break extravaganzas help curb my sorrow? Most definitely. letters@ chronicle.utah.edu Contact Emily Andrews at e.andrews@chronicle.utah.edu for more information. |