Roomies: Social Networking Web Site Helps Freshmen Make Connections Before They Ever Step on Campus.

By Erinn Hutkin erinn.hutkin@roanoke.com 981-3138

She met a classmate from Las Vegas whom she calls awesome. Another from South Carolina is “the most amazing person.” She knows who’s gonna party in the dorms every night, who is going to have her nose in a book.

She debated their summer reading, who liked it, who didn’t. She joined discussions on who has a car, as well as its name. (Hers, by the way, is Carly.)

And she did it all before ever hauling laundry baskets, appliances and extra-long twin bedsheets to campus.

Simone Berman-Perlstein is part of the freshman class that starts today at Hollins University. This summer, the 18-year-old from outside Philadelphia joined thousands of college-bound freshmen in meeting classmates, finding roommates and getting questions answered on Facebook.com.

“College has already started for me, in a way,” she said before arriving at Hollins. “It’s a great ground-breaker. It takes away a lot of the, ‘Um, hi.’ “

Founded by a 19-year-old Harvard drop-out, the 3-year-old social networking Web site claims 35 million active users. A Newsweek cover story this month called Facebook as much a part of campus as “finals, iPods and beer.”

Now, following the virtual footsteps of e-mail, instant messaging and MySpace, tech-minded teens are using the site to take the nerves out of going to college by making friends before beginning the semester.

At Virginia Tech, roughly half of this year’s 5,000 freshmen joined Facebook groups such as “Virginia Tech Class of 2011,” where students ask if anyone has spare football tickets, post queries about where they can find weight rooms and write that they are looking for fellow freshmen living off campus.

“Whenever I have a question, I don’t go to the Virginia Tech Web site, I go to the [Facebook] group,” explained 18-year-old Stephen Strong, who started the online forum in December.

Strong estimates there are 300 discussion topics on the Facebook site. There’s a group for fantasy football fans, another for music. Even Tech transfer students have a Facebook network.

Through the site, Strong made friends — one from Roanoke, one from Colorado — whom he talked to this summer the old-fashioned way, over the phone.

Finding common ground in online discussions and making friends made Strong feel more comfortable about college because he realized there are others who share his interests.

“It’s pretty cool that I’ve become friends with people that I don’t even know,” he said.

Meanwhile, Amelia Campbell, a Hollins freshman from New Hampshire, spent a sleepless weekend this summer devouring the final installment of “Harry Potter.” But on Facebook, she found a classmate who shared another passion — her love of the TV show “M*A*S*H”

When her future dorm neighbor noticed the 1970s sitcom listed as one of Campbell’s favorites on her Facebook profile, they formed a friendship. Campbell said she would bring the book for her neighbor to read at college. They also made plans to watch the movie.

“I’m going a long way from home,” Campbell explained. “I already know I’m going to get along with some of these people.”

Other freshmen, such as Patrick Henry High School grad Maggie McDowell, found a roommate on Facebook.

McDowell’s campus, the University of North Carolina, suggested students find roommates instead of being randomly paired. Although the 18-year-old is the only person she knows at the at Chapel Hill school, it was easy to find what looked like a good roomate by joining the campus’ “class of 2011″ network. The two talked online, learning whether the other snored, what time they went to bed. McDowell was asked if she had a “big Southern accent.” Her roommate said it was good when the Roanoke teen answered “no.”

“We liked each other the best. It’s like online dating,” McDowell explained. “Not all my Facebook friends will translate into real friends, but at least I’ll have somewhere to start.”

The trend of online networking is one Ed Spencer, Tech’s associate vice president for student affairs, has noticed in recent years. After all, a Pew Center study released in January found 55 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 use social networking sites.

While Spencer thinks the interaction is mainly positive, one downside is that hovering “helicopter parents” are starting to call the school in the summer, requesting dorm changes for their kids when they don’t approve of a roommate’s Facebook profile.

The college, Spencer added, does not switch roommates upon Mom and Dad’s request.

During orientation, Spencer said students are warned about posting too much online and attracting cyber-stalkers. Otherwise, he thinks it’s remarkable that young adults went from hiding diaries in drawers to writing online blogs in just a few generations.

“The social networking has turned things around 180 degrees,” he said.

Many Tech freshmen grew particularly close after the campus shootings on April 16. There were discussions and prayer chains on Facebook. Much of the talk, said Stephanie Hare, a new Hokie who was a Hidden Valley High School senior at the time, centered on how the shooting would make students stronger as a college and a class.

“I think actually a lot more people decided to come [to Tech] because of that,” she said.

Although Berman-Perlstein’s Hollins campus has not been marked by tragedy, she said online networking still makes her feel closer to her classmates.

Instead of worrying about fitting in, her biggest fear about college was saying goodbye to her best friend — her mom.

Maybe, she mused, Mom should join Facebook.

(c) 2007 Roanoke Times & World News. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.