{"id":74,"date":"2025-11-21T14:10:42","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T14:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/kiah\/?p=74"},"modified":"2025-11-21T14:10:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T14:10:42","slug":"how-to-move-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/kiah\/2025\/11\/21\/how-to-move-out\/","title":{"rendered":"How To: Move OUT"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>Hello, my dear readers! <br \/><br \/>It has been a wild month so far (and it\u2019s only been two weeks!). I have much to share. <br \/><br \/>My first blog was titled How To: Move to College, so why am I now moving out? Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019m not dropping out or anything drastic. I had to change rooms, as some people do, because my living situation was deteriorating. In this installation of How To, I will be sharing why I moved out of my original dorm room, and some tips on how to avoid having to follow in my footsteps. <br \/><br \/>My ex-roommate has a boyfriend. My current roommate also has one, but in the two weeks I have been living with her, I haven\u2019t seen him. However, it was rare that three days would pass and my ex-roommate\u2019s boyfriend was not in our dorm, hanging out, sleeping over, and using our kitchen and shower. In my effort to avoid fighting with my roommate, I let it all slide. I was terrified of fighting with her, when usually I possess enough sense and confidence to advocate for myself. In this case, I did not want to sour our relationship and make living with her difficult. Ultimately, it didn\u2019t matter; living in that room became unbearable anyway. If my dorm is supposed to be a place I can retreat to and relax in, I was on edge in my room, always worried that the boyfriend would be there when I arrived or show up and shatter the peace.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>My final straw was when he came into our room at 3a.m., against her will, while I was sleeping, and refused to leave for two hours. It&#8217;s safe to say that I never wanted to see him again. When she brought him back to the dorm later that week, I told her in no uncertain terms that he was not allowed to spend the night. She didn\u2019t care, and he slept over.\u00a0<br \/><br \/>This was my last straw; a clear instance of disrespect, on top of all the smaller events I had refused to lay at my roommate&#8217;s feet. I knew then that I would never have peace because neither of them respected me; perhaps I could have put the pieces together sooner, but again, I wanted to avoid fighting with my roommate so badly that I refused to assign blame to her, even though she is an adult and fully responsible for her actions. Luckily, by this point, I had already put in a room change request. I waited two weeks before receiving an offer, and a week after he stayed over that last time, I was gone. <br \/><br \/>All of this is to say that living with people is hard, and living with a perfect stranger is harder! While it&#8217;s important to respect your roommate, you also must prioritize your peace. It is ok to take up space in your room! I was afraid to do that, and my situation worsened for it.\u00a0<br \/><br \/>If I could do it all again, here\u2019s what I would do:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>Set firm and specific boundaries during my roommate agreement. I knew I was uncomfortable with the boyfriend in the room all the time, so instead of hedging around the issue, I wish I had simply stated my feelings. If my roommate wanted to discuss, we could compromise. Once something is in writing, a person can be held to it. Use that space to discuss everything: policies on spending the night, activities that are allowed in the dorm, notice periods if someone is going to come over, bedtimes, cleaning schedules; anything and everything you can think of. Be firm and be confident, but remember to be kind. Mutual respect is the building block of a healthy roommate relationship, not fear or appeasement. Set boundaries early and nip problems in the bud. If something bothers you, say so! There\u2019s nothing worse than letting a problem fester.<\/li>\r\n<li>Communicate more firmly. If, like me, you beat around the bush during your roommate agreement, that is ok! Boundaries are flexible, so communicate if they change. When I tried to do so, I was gentle, accommodating, and nervous. I needed to be assertive because problems will persist if you don&#8217;t address them properly. Be confident and speak your mind. If you need support, a trusted friend or RA can mediate the conversation.\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<li>Speaking of, go to your RA. This is one thing I would not change about my approach because my RA was AMAZING throughout this whole situation. He was nonjudgmental and gave me a lot of the advice I am now sharing with you. RAs also have bosses, so if the situation gets really out of control and they can&#8217;t handle it, someone else can.\u00a0<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>Moving out was the best decision for me. Lots of the time, though, roommates don&#8217;t have conflicts or can resolve them quickly by having a conversation. The moral of the story is: The University of Iowa wants to help its students live and learn to the best of their ability. One of the perks of attending such a big university is that you have a huge support system available, and I highly recommend utilizing it. While I had a pretty bad time with my first roommate, with the help of my RA and University Housing and Dining, I was able to change that situation. My new roommate is really sweet and even helped me move in with her! I could go on and on about the resources available here; it really amazes me how much the university supports its students and faculty. Maybe my next blog will be about everything I&#8217;ve discovered during my first semester \ud83d\ude42\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>Well, thank you, dear readers, for sticking this one out with me. Hopefully, your November has been more peaceful than mine, and happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone gets a well-deserved break.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>I&#8217;ll catch you in the next one!\u00a0<br \/>Kiah&lt;3<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello, my dear readers! It has been a wild month so far (and it\u2019s only been two weeks!). I have much to share. My first blog was titled How To: Move to College, so why am I now moving out? Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019m not dropping out or anything drastic. I had to change rooms, as some people do, because my living situation was deteriorating. In this installation of How To, I will be sharing why &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/kiah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/kiah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/kiah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/kiah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/kiah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/kiah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/kiah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/kiah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/kiah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/kiah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}