In the spirit of promoting “geographic diversity,” NYU will not allow incoming freshmen to choose their roommates, starting with the 2013-14 class. In fact, they’re completely changing the method used to place first-year students.
Rather than taking potential compatibility into account, the school’s new housing policy will match up classmates in the seven first-year residence halls based on their home countries and states, encouraging newcomers to branch out instead of sticking with friends from back home, student affairs administrator Tom Ellett said Monday.
Seems like a rather forced way of promoting diversity, doesn’t it? There are always going to be college kids who just want to hang out with their high school/home state friends and those want to start with a clean slate. Sometimes the matches work, sometimes they don’t, sometimes freshmen end up spending all their time in their high school friends’ dorm rooms avoiding their assigned roommates. Diversity! The forced matching isn’t that helpful or necessary. These kids are in Manhattan! They’re pretty much adults! They’ll literally step out the door and meet a different person each day. A university doesn’t need to hold their hand and do a simple social task for them.
(Photo: Matt Chan/Flickr + Photoshopz)
