{"id":8563,"date":"2025-07-22T20:58:43","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/?p=8563"},"modified":"2025-07-30T15:03:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T20:03:13","slug":"roommate-dynamics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/07\/roommate-dynamics\/","title":{"rendered":"Room for two: Forming bonds with roommates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cate Slaughter of Charlottesville, Virginia, said she was worried about meeting her cherubs roommate after a poor experience at a camp last summer. But after meeting Elana Snyder of Bethesda, Maryland, she said her concerns disappeared.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cShe was so welcoming,\u201d Slaughter said. \u201cWe talked for like two hours while we unpacked. Doing a roommate assignment on the first day with her was super fun. She\u2019s so wonderful and so cheerful and so excited to be here. I couldn\u2019t ask for a better roommate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Snyder said the pair\u2019s connection came naturally, and they bonded over their love for journalism and a shared music taste.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI remember being really scared. I didn\u2019t know what to expect or anything about this girl, and I was going to live with her for four weeks,\u201d Snyder said. \u201cWe just started talking right away, and we really hit it off.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the roommates\u2019 connection didn\u2019t come without challenges. Snyder said Slaughter goes to sleep earlier than her, so she had to adjust to sleeping with the lights on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Roommates Kai Shah of Burlingame, California, and Braden Stone of St. Petersburg, Florida, said they had an unusual roommate experience. The two unexpectedly reunited after previously attending a Syracuse sports broadcasting summer program. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cHe\u2019s just easy to talk to. I can tell him anything,\u201d Shah said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before they go to bed, Shah said he usually tells Stone dad jokes, which Stone said he appreciates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI like how genuine he is \u2014 just being friendly to everyone.\u201d Stone said. \u201cHe\u2019s always laughing at something or in a good mood. It\u2019s always fun to talk.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cherubs recount finding unexpected friendship and bonds through sharing a dorm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":278,"featured_media":8582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[513],"class_list":["post-8563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":513,"user_id":278,"is_guest":0,"slug":"samanthayee","display_name":"Samantha Yee","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a2ac20d7cc8837e61b0fa226ced701bcd304ced75304d1a21a0b983599e64f2e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Yee","first_name":"Samantha","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/278"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8563"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10321,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8563\/revisions\/10321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8563"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=8563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}