I want to use this post to give a shootout to the official Loyola University Chicago Class of 2016 Facebook page.

There are a few thoughts I have about this page that I think may be helpful for prospective students.First of all, use this page.

When I was an admitted Freshman I made what I could call “medium” use of Facebook pages about Loyola. By that I mean I didn’t use them heavily, but more than just once or twice.

The whole reason I am making this post is because I am currently sharing my table in the IC with 2 people that I met through Facebook before school started. I am not saying that everybody you meet on the page will be your best friend, but although I have met many great friends in many different ways I still have kept up a few of the friendships that started there. It is a good place to start relationships. Then you can go from there and see which stick. A lot didn’t, but a few cool ones did.

Second, I have mixed feelings about using the page to recruit roommates. I have nothing against it, but I personally do not see any reason compelling enough to do so. My Freshman year I had a randomly assigned roommate. He turned out to be AWESOME. And I don’t mean in the “we are best friends today” sense of awesome.

I mean that he and I honestly had very little in common. Different family backgrounds, different fiscal backgrounds, different geological backgrounds, different tastes in music, different tastes in friends, different majors, you name it and we did not have it in common. Yet, he was the coolest roommate ever.

We would spend the entire day hanging out with other people. We had very few friends in common and even fewer activities in common. But when it was just the two of us hanging out in the room we got along famously. We found all sorts of interesting things to talk about and would stay up late talking all the time.

My point is that anybody you might meet on the Facebook page is just as likely to be a stranger and have less in common with you than you may think based on a few FB comments and conversations. At the same time, having a random roommate is just as unpredictable, but can end up being a great experience.

All I am trying to say is that you can go ahead and find a roommate on the page, and it may work out great! But if you don’t, the odds are just as good that you’ll have a similar experience with a random roommate. Because let’s face it, Facebook is still pretty random until you starting meeting people first and then friending them.

Other than that, I would just encourage anybody reading this to hop on over to the page and put up their major, residence hall, interests and any questions they have on the wall. I enjoy finding other Ad/PR, Communications, or Philosophy students on there and answering questions. So go ahead and ask!