>> Hello, I'd like to welcome everybody back to the counseling and psychological services podcast series. I'm Dr Derek Vegan, and we are here for another episode specific to managing roommate conflict and promoting well being. We have some amazing guests with us today, Dr Shereen Ayoubi, a staff psychologist at Caps.


>> Hello there, my name is Dr Shereen Ayoubi, I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and I work at George Mason's Counseling and psychological services as a staff psychologist.
>> And we have Colton Goodman from Housing with us.
>> So, my name is Colton Goodman and I am the Assistant Director of Residence Life for Residential Academic Initiatives, which is a great title but usually what I work with is learning communities in housing on campus.

The reason that I'm here is because I have a big background in working with students and roommate conflicts being a resident director in the past, and so I'd like to give some of my expertise here.
>> So, I'm hoping you guys can start us off, what are the best ways to manage roommate conflict if I'm feeling overwhelmed or stressed?


>> When you're feeling overwhelmed or frustrated, give yourself a minute to cool off and be alone if you can. Try to identify what you're feeling so you can understand what exactly is frustrating or overwhelming to you about this conflict with your roommate. Identifying what's going on for you can help you in communicating that to your roommate.


>> Colton, do you have any thoughts?
>> So, I think that's a great question, I think the first thing that we want to keep in mind is that you never wanna come into a roommate conflict with anger. When you come in with anger, your frustrations are going to come out, you may not be able to articulate exactly what you want to say to your roommate in that moment.

So, when you have those thoughts, don't be afraid to reach out to someone, talk it out first. If it's a family member, if it's a friend, don't be afraid to have those conversations first so that you can really get what you're trying to say down first.
>> Do you have any tips for how to do this?


>> Anything that just kind of brings you down from that frustration or anger so that you can be precise and direct with those conversations.
>> What are ways to express my needs without feeling controlling or annoying to my roommate?
>> It's important that you and your roommate feel comfortable in your dorm.

One way to approach these conversations is using I language. For example, instead of telling your roommate something like you always leave the room a mess, try saying something like, I feel frustrated when I have to clean up messes that I haven't made.
>> If you're having trouble with this and need to talk it out with someone, who do you go to?


>> If there are isn't available, we also have community directors that's part of their position as well is to have these conversations. And make sure that the correct message is being put across, but on both parties, not just one or the other.
>> So, what do you do if you can't resolve roommate conflict?


>> If you're unable to resolve your roommate conflict on your own, seek out additional support, whether it's your are a community director, housing and residents life or another office on campus. There are many avenues available to students to gain support with resolving roommate conflict.
>> Colton, do you have any thoughts?


>> I would ask myself, have I brought this up before? Because, if they don't know, they can't change their actions. So, keep in mind that you may not be annoying or controlling because they just don't know, be precise, be direct about what you want to convey to your roommate so that they know what's happening.

And you're not feeling that sense of what if, because what if will flood our minds until we have nothing left. So, make sure that you're having those conversations before you start saying, I'm annoying, I'm controlling.
>> What if my roommate constantly has guests in the room at all hours of the day and I really don't appreciate this, any suggestions for how to talk about this with them?


>> The other thing to keep in mind when you are having those conversations is the why. So, if you're just coming to your roommate and saying, I don't like that you have people over, I don't like that you're using all the hours of the night to stay up.

They may just think that it's a personal quirk of yours, right? But if you come with the why, I don't like that you're staying up all night or that there are things happening at night when I have classes at 8AM. The why really does help that understanding of, maybe I could be quieter, or maybe I could do this outside the space, things like that.

So, in general always keep your why in mind so that everyone can really get an understanding of why you're bringing this up.
>> Not to up on the negative, but let's just say it's really not working out with your roommate, are there any other options?
>> At the end of the day, if it's just not working and even with our students, staff members, with our professional staff members, we just can't seem to find resolve for that issue, we will explore room changes.

However, we like to have these conversations first for the growth of the student and for the roommates because in any type of situation, no matter what you go into, you are going to have issues that pop up. You're going to have to learn how to resolve them, and that's the piece outside of the classroom that we're teaching here.

We're trying to give you those tools and how to convey those messages before going out into the quote unquote real world.
>> Colton, I'm hoping you can provide us with any housing updates for incoming and existing students?
>> So, don't forget to apply for housing for the 23/24 academic year, the website is housing.gmu.edu/apply-housing.

For our first year students that are coming in, that application is open currently, for our returning students that will reopen on April 18th so that if you have not yet, you can absolutely apply for the next year. For off campus students, that application goes live on April 18th as well, and don't forget for graduate students that application goes live on April 13th of this year.


>> Thank you so much for listening to the podcast, and if you need anything, please reach out to counseling and psychological services.