Having a single dorm room, or room within an apartment, is great. A patch of living area you can control. I've loved it like that. My rap sheet:
Freshman Year: In a double (2 beds, so me + 1 roommate) in a 530-resident, 8-story high rise dorm.
Sophomore: Single room in same dorm.
Junior: Single room in a 120-resident, 3-story dorm.
Senior: Single room in an apartment for 4.
That said, dorm life in college has been unbelievable. I have sooooooooooooooo many crazy stories from life in the dorms. Many people find it annoying, and while much of it IS annoying, some of it, if taken with a sense of humor, can be quite entertaining.
I love apartments. They're much easier to maintain than a house. I want to spend my weekends pursuing my interests, not mowing lawns or having to worry about a broken furnace!
That said, getting back to Margie's original question, here's how I coped in the dorm:
1) Try to get a single room
2) If (1) is not possible, try to set ground rules in place ahead of time with your roommate. Don't try to "lay down the law" on him/her, actually talk out what you want to do and when, and give your roommate the chance to do the same to you. Then try to develop solutions to problems as they arise along that.
3) Try to find out when your roommate will NOT be in the room and try to plan things that require concentration around then. Encourage your roommate to do the same.
Hope this helps!
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"So when they rolled their eyes at me and told me 'I ain't normal,' I always took it as a compliment"--Katrina Elam