Think about waking up next to the same person every day for almost nine months. Maybe this person wakes up at 6 a.m. every day. Maybe it's 2 p.m. Maybe the person in the other bed doesn't like to shower every day. No, this is not married life -- it's dorm life.

As incoming freshmen slide into college life, one aspect might ominously hover overhead -- roommates. Will I like him or her? What if I don't? Where do I turn if it doesn't work out? What if he or she doesn't like deodorant?

Questions do turn up when the word "roommate" is mentioned, but there are different avenues to take in the situation of incompatible roommates.

Barry Bram, associate director of the Office of Residence Life, said out of the 13,000-some students living on campus, only a small percentage of students truly cannot live with their roommates.

However, Bram said problems do arise and there are steps students can take to work through them.

"The first thing we tell them is to talk to the roommate," Bram said.

Lack of communication is one of the biggest problems with roommate troubles, he said. Sometimes, roommates do not know they are getting on eachothers' nerves. If talking to the roommate just doesn't work, Bram said to go to the resident assistant (RA).

"The RAs are trained in mediation. Hopefully, it won't have to go past the RA," he said.

Sometimes, the problems are bad enough to go above the RA to the RA supervisor.

Lindsay McGann (junior-economics and international business) said she had a run-in with her roommate during her freshman year that couldn't be absolved by talking.

"My roommate decided to let her boyfriend stay with us for almost two weeks, among other problems," McGann said.

Her roommate asked to have her boyfriend stay, but not for two weeks.

"It was terrible. We just weren't getting along and after the boyfriend came, I couldn't handle it anymore," McGann said. "I mean, two people are enough in those tiny rooms."

McGann went to her RA and explained the situation and after many meetings, things couldn't be fixed. Residence Life moved them into new rooms.

"I felt bad because I know that it was hard on my roommate too, but we were way too different to be living in those close of quarters," she said.

Students in the dorms are allowed to have guests for a total of three days.

Bram said situations like McGann's sometimes do happen and one way to fix them is a direct room switch.

Nine weeks into the semester, despondent roommates each can find another same-sex person to move in with -- all that it takes is signing a paper in the Shields Building.

"At the beginning of the year, we don't have room to move people," Bram said. "If it's a horrible, horrible, horrible situation, then we try our best."

Bram also said Residence Life is working on something new this year called a "routine room switch." Before Thanksgiving, students will have the chance to randomly switch rooms.

Bram said when problems do arise, it tends to take up a lot of people's time and switching may cause more problems than the original roommate assignment.

"Overall people tend to get along," he said.

Cori Tabachnik (sophomore-business) was one of those people. She said both of her first-year experiences with her roommates were easy. She lived with a random roommate the first semester and then moved onto her sorority floor.

"Communication is the main reason why we worked out," she said. "Without talking, it wouldn't have been such a good time."