Taking the conflict out of dorm life
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Hu Lerong is mad about football. But until this year, the 20-year-old student had nobody to watch matches with. He was assigned to a dorm full of football-illiterate roomies. Whenever a match was on, he had to sit alone in front of the television.
“I felt lonely and desperate,” said Hu.
However, at the beginning of his second year, Hu took a psychological test designed to find him more suitable roommates. He now lives with several football-mad students. “It’s quite unusual,” he laughed. “Unlike the previous dorm arrangement, it is a cool new idea.”
In fact, this “cool idea” was developed by Fudan University. Liu Mingbo, an official from Fudan’s Psychological Health Center, says that something had to be done in face of students’ frequent complaints about dorm life. With the help of psychology students, a plan was devised this August. It consists of two parts – an open question asking students who they would prefer to live with, and a series of questionnaires about hobbies and personalities.
Each contributes 50 percent to the final result, which is calculated on computers using a psychological formula. The computer tries to assign like-minded students to the same dorm.
More than 3,000 sophomores took the test, and dorms were re-arranged.
Hu is certainly happier with the new arrangement. “Now I don’t need to be afraid of playing football on my own or disturbing others by watching games. Thus we will have fewer quarrels.”
However Peng Xiaolong, 20, a social science major, is concerned that the new system may leave students lacking the ability to communicate with people who have different interests and backgrounds.
Fewer friends?
When Peng was a freshman, he was quick to make friends with people who had a wide range of interests and personalities.
“It can be awkward studying with strangers and spending all your time with them,” he said, “But at least I got to meet other people thanks to the random roommate assignment.”
Now that his roommates are from a similar background to his, he believes he’ll have fewer chances to make new friends.
However, Liu argues that this formula balances negative factors with positive ones. For example, the computer would not put several untidy people in the same room, but would look to mix them with tidy students.
Dorm relationships are a common problem in universities. A Chongqing University survey in May found that 72.8 percent of students name dorm conflicts as their No 1 worry.
Not all dorm arrangements are based on scientific formulas. Wang Liuyan, a student fair manager for the English Department of Zhejiang University of Technology, arranged dorms according to students’ star signs.
“I believe people will get along well with each other if they have the same star sign,” said Wang. She said her special arrangement is welcomed by her students who find it “creative”.
(Li Wenwen contributed to the story.)
生词：
bailout 救市
allocate 分配
amateurish 业余的
chuckle 咯咯笑
credential 证件
drunkard 醉汉
dynamic 动感的
elegant 端庄的
feedback 反馈
folksy 有民间风味的
formula 公式
head-on 正面的
hissing 发嘶嘶声
illiterate 一窍不通者
percussion 打击乐
Polytechnic 工艺的
questionnaire 问卷
reprisal 报复
rhythm 节奏
roomie 室友
satirical 讽刺的
sophomore 大学二年级生
BONUS
Expressions
flop
低落，失败
The footballer really flopped even though his club paid a lot of money for him.
虽然俱乐部付给他了很多钱，但是这球员还是不行了。
play off
假装…
That man isn’t seriously ill, he is just trying to play off of it so people help him.
他病得并不重，他只是想假装让人们帮助他。
stray away
偏离
The politician talked for so long that she strayed away from her original point.
政客们谈了很久，结果远离了他们最初的话题。
