College Roommate Questionnaire: Fill & Download for Free

I'm going to answer not exactly this question, but a related question. (I seem to do that a lot on Quora.) I'll tell you what I cover in the first lecture of Dartmouth's introductory computer science course.I cover linear search, binary search, and counting in parallel. I made up none of these techniques.Linear search: I have a Gumby doll. I have given it to a particular student before class. I show a picture of Gumby and tell the class that I forgot whom I gave it to. I then ask the students one-by-one whether they have my Gumby.Binary search: The old phone book trick. I bring in a phone book, and have a student repeatedly rip it in half (down the spine), until just one page remains, and that page contains the name of a person whose number we're looking up. I keep count of the number of rips, which leads us into a brief explanation of logarithms and how they relate to computer science.Counting in parallel: We count how many students are in the lecture hall by having them all stand, pair up, one person in each pair sits down and the other tells her or him the number of people she or he represents. The person still standing adds that number into her or his own number. Repeat until one person remains standing. Also shows logarithmic behavior, along with the power of parallelism.I talk about the things you can do with computer science, using my own college roommates, who were computer science majors, as examples. One is a successful marketing consultant, one has an Academy Award from his work at Pixar, and one was the editor of the DSM-IV. I talk about some of my former students who took the introductory course from me, not expecting to major in computer science, but were swayed by the course, and the successes they've had since graduating.And then I get into a little bit of Python code. Just print statements and parameterless functions.I ask the students to fill out a questionnaire over the next few days. Without any prompting, several mention how much they enjoyed the first lecture.

Most colleges will send a questionnaire to help pair compatible roommates. Answer it honestly. It will probably ask about things like:Do you like to have friends over, or do you prefer to keep to yourself?What are your sleeping habits? I.e., do you stay up late or go to bed early? Wake up early or late? Stay up late on weekends?What are your study habits?Do you like to listen to music while you study? Watch TV?Are you neat or untidy?Do you like to talk about politics? Religion? Money? Avoid them like the plague?Note that good friends don’t necessarily make good roommates. The requirements of the two are actually quite different.

As a current college student, I feel like there is one lesson that rings true to me so far.Never make enemies with your roommates.Here’s my story:One of my roommates decided to prank me. It was silly stuff at first – mostly trying to get me to believe that my dorm was haunted.But the pranks got more complex and I knew I had to retaliate.At first, I did nothing. I knew if I waited an opportunity would arise for me to attack.Sure enough, several months went by and this particular roommate asked me to sign up for a school dating service (where you fill out this long questionnaire and go on a date with someone you match with from the campus).I agreed.I never filled out the questionnaire.Instead, I got in contact with the CREATOR of the dating service.I asked them to be set up on a blind date with my roommate. When my roommate found out he was matched with a “real” date, he was excited for weeks.Then he showed up to the date with me – all in front of his closest friends at the campus who were also in on the joke.We had a good laugh and I consider him one of my closest friends.My point is this:Your roommates are some of the first people you will interact with at college. It doesn’t always work out between you – sometimes you don’t click and you’ll need to move on.But you should really try and give your roommates an honest effort. Having roommates as your friends can elevate your college experience. Having them as enemies can make your day-to-day lifestyle miserable.And, if you need any more convincing, just remember the old saying:“Be nice to people who have access to your toothbrush”.Photo Credit: Get Him to the Greek, CMU Hype, Stephnsm