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Roommates or live by yourself?


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Hello :)

I'm about to start PA school in August, and I'm very excited! Right now I'm looking at housing options and deciding if I should find a roommate or live by myself. I would love to hear any current or past PA students' advice.

 

I know the benefits of getting a roommate, but I'm also a little worried if there's any potential problem. If you don't mind, please share your experience.

 

Thank you!

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Ha! I think the opposite. After being in class with 30 other extremely stressed out people from 8-4 or 9-5 everyday, I say live alone if you can. It's nice to not have to deal with others (and their personal issues or bad moods) after a stressful day. Especially when you have several hours of homework and studying for exams to do. With that being said, living alone is great if you can afford it, but if you don't have any friends in the area I do suppose it can be isolating, but it's not exactly like you have a lot of free time to socialize anyways. I live alone but I have a cat, it was a good compromise for me.

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I suspect it depends on (a) how you like to study, (b) how you like to live, and © the size of the town you'll be living in. I liked to study alone most of the time and I liked to live alone. The town I lived in was small; I could walk to school and I had classmates on almost every block in town, so I wasn't isolated. If I wanted to set my alarm for 3 and wake up to study, I could do that. When I wanted to go to sleep, it was quiet enough for that to happen.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

If you get a roommate, don't room with one of your fellow classmates. A few of my classmates did that this year and it ended up being a disaster, which isn't good especially in a class of 30 students that you are around all the time and then have to go home to a classmate that you don't mesh with. My advice, live alone but in an apartment complex where fellow classmates are close by and you are close to campus. It has worked out great for me.

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Tough question: Many of my current classmates live together as roomates, some live at home with their parents or families, and others (including myself) live with their significant others. It is great having my boyfriend to help out around the appartment, and because he is in medicine himself, he understands the time and work that I have to put in. It is really important to have a strong support system even if you decide to live alone. It all depends on the kind of personality you are. Hope this helps. Good luck!

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I would say either live alone or live with one roommate. I lived with 3 classmates and it wasn't the best situation when you're super stressed out all the time and surrounded by the same 35 people 8+ hours a day, 5 days a week. It really made my didactic year difficult on more than one occasion for multiple reasons. (We're all still friends, but it was better after I moved out). I ended up moving out and living alone during clinical year in a high rise building with a lot of medical student friends and liked it a lot. If anything, I'd say living alone didactic year and living with someone clinical year is the way to go. You don't see your classmates much when you're on rotations and it might be nice to have someone to hang out with when you're home after work or on the weekends. The class ahead of mine had a few apartments where 2 or 3 classmates lived together and they all worked out well and stayed together all throughout the program. My class was different as hardly anyone lived together (except my apartment of 4 -- and that ended up breaking apart after didactic year). It really depends on the type of people you live with I think. Good luck!

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I have a roommate, which is also a classmate, and it has been great. We both however, no when to give each other space, and we work well as a team. There are days he cooks and I clean up, we split groceries and everything like that. It really depends on you and your perspective roommate. I personally don't like being alone in a house all the time, so it was nice for me. Plus I'm saving about $300 in rent for similar places around and probably about $50 in utilities.

 

It's nice to have a friend, but it can be a disaster too. Depends on what kind of person you are and who they are. If it is possible (it was in my case), meet your roommate first.

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