Living With My Classmate/BFF 101: Why Living With a Fellow Nursing Student Freakin' Rocked

R and I were in the same nursing program together, and we were the only inhabitants of our two-bedroom apartment. 

We shared a campus parking permit and carpooled often. We happened to form the same group of friends at school, so we sat together in all of our classes and frequented the same study group sessions. We also got placed in the same clinical group a handful of times.

In other words, we spent a. lot. of. time. together.

Being roommates with someone in my nursing program was a little nerve-wracking to me before we moved in. 

What if I was opening up my whole life to someone I wasn't compatible with? What if we got in a fight yet had to see one another every waking hour of the day? What if we got competitive about grades, and school became an uncomfortable topic between us? 

But, this was the best living situation I'd ever been part of for a variety of reasons. We shared what I have recently identified as four of the most necessary requirements for successfully being both roommates and close friends. We were respectful of one another, we were forgiving with one another, we had a shared generosity with one another, and we were unconditionally there for one another.

1. Respectful

We were respectful of one another's possessions, time, sleep, etcetera. But most importantly, we were respectful of one another's right to have an outside/personal life. There was no pressure to spend all our time at the apartment in the living room together or to always go out together. We never got offended when the other person went straight to her room or booked her entire weekend away from the apartment.

2. Forgiving 

If one of us made the other late to class or clinical or locked the other out, there was no holding it against one another, knowing our time to do the same would likely come up soon.

3. Shared Generosity 

We possessed a shared mentality on how to split material items. As long as the other person asked, we almost always lent groceries, clothes, wine, car rides, or cash to each other. This led to a trusting comfortability in the equality of our generosity, rather than the feeling of fear to touch one another's things or as if we required precise Venmo charges for every little request.

4. Unconditionally there

Sometimes a positive word was not uttered from my mouth all day. Sometimes R was not exactly a ray of sunshine before her morning coffee. We understood we were not going to be our best selves 24/7, and we were ready to drop anything for the other no matter what mood she was in. Was I short with R all day? Maybe. Would she sit down on the couch with me that evening and let me cry about boy problems to her? Absolutely. Was R giving me s#*t all day? Perhaps. Would I make us dinner and shower her with love and snuggles if she hit a parked car? You bet.

__________________________________________________________

These four factors were required prerequisites to the blessing of a living situation I experienced throughout my two-year nursing program. But, besides our drama-free compatibility and eventual best-friendship, I recognized something else that influenced this positivity:

Living with a fellow nursing student was an incredibly special addition to my happiness at home.

R was my debriefer. When I came home from clinical and needed to talk about my day, she did not need to interrupt every few sentences asking for clarification. In addition, she could actually provide me insight that helped me process the event(s) and gain another relevant perspective. Having a roommate in nursing allowed me to have an at-home soundboard and counselor that helped me understand what I was feeling about my shift that day.

Having R as my debriefer was so important to my self-care routine. Because of her, I was able to identify emotions about a patient situation, brainstorm productive ways to handle these emotions, prevent myself from bottling up and obsessing over difficult topics, and keep a stable headspace about nursing.

This leads to my next point. R and I both truly understood what it meant to be a nursing student. When she came home one evening crying after her first code, a well-intentioned non-nurse may have reacted with, "Focus on the silver lining! It's all okay in the end, because he survived".

But, I understood what this meant. For the first time, she experienced second-hand trauma. For the first time, her actions immediately influenced if someone lived or died. For the first time, she felt the weight of the guilt and anxiety when a code did not go according to plan. For the first time, she felt she may have let her team down. For tonight, I knew she did not want to only hear "it's all okay!"

Nursing school is tough cookies emotionally. But it's also tough cookies on an academic level. We had classes, shifts, and assignments that took up our weekends and required social sacrifices. By living with a fellow nursing student, I was never in the position to ask my roommate to not host a Sunday-Funday due to my midterm the next day, to request she keep the music down on a Friday night because of my early-morning Saturday class. Would these scenarios have been the end of the world? No. Could I have studied elsewhere if I lived with someone whose job did not demand the same social sacrifices as mine? Yes. But, it was much more convenient and stress-free to not feel like a fun-sucking rule-maker forbidden from doing what I needed in my own home.

On a more logistical level, living with another nursing student provided me a built-in study buddy. Even the most autonomous will require a phone a friend from time to time. Living with R allowed me to study independently yet have a constant resource thirty feet away. We practiced physical assessments on each other before performing them for our final, quizzed one another as we carpooled to a midterm, bounced ideas off each other for papers, and answered last minute/panicked questions at 11 PM the night before an exam.

We could also get the other out of being stuck in her own head. R and I both "failed" something at some point throughout our program. We also both experienced conflicts with individuals at the School of Nursing. Because we were in the same boat, we had authority to keep it real with one another:

• "You're allowed to "fail" that three times before it actually counts against you. You messed up on _____, which is an easy/minor fix. Just change ______, and you'll pass with flying colors on the next round."
• "I was there when (insert classmate or faculty's name here) said that, and I don't think they were making a personal attack on you."
• "I know (insert classmate or faculty's name here) cares more about ___ than ___, he/she must have just been having a bad day, and this does not reflect on you."

Living with R kept me sane, confident, and successful in an environment that can be chaotic and trying. We could share our passions and our fears with one another. We could nerd out with one another. We could empower one another. We could calm one another. Living with R was by far the best thing that could have ever happened to the beginning of my nursing career, and I love and already miss her tremendously.