For housing professionals, move-in day often feels like the finish line. Months of planning culminate in a few hectic days of key distribution, check-in lines, and helping students carry far more belongings than they will ever actually use. Once the halls are full, it can be tempting to shift our attention to the next operational challenge.
For students, however, move-in is just the beginning.
The first month of college is a period of tremendous transition. Students are navigating new routines, new freedoms, and often a new understanding of themselves. They are meeting people from different geographic regions, cultures, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, and identities. Some are learning how to share a space for the first time. Others are discovering perspectives that challenge assumptions they have held for years. These experiences align with Schlossberg’s (1984, 1995) work on transition, which suggests that changes in relationships, routines, and assumptions can significantly influence an individual’s development and adjustment to new environments.
In residence life, we often focus on helping students adjust to college. Equally important is helping them connect with one another.
Research suggests that many of the friendships students build during their first six weeks on campus become some of the most significant relationships of their college experience (Hudson, 2018). These relationships are more than social connections. They influence students’ sense of belonging, persistence, and overall success in college. At institutions where students live on campus, residence halls become one of the primary spaces where these relationships are formed and maintained.
What is particularly compelling is that some of the most impactful relationships are often formed across differences. Students arrive on campus carrying unique experiences, values, and perspectives shaped by their families, communities, and cultures. Living alongside peers from different backgrounds creates opportunities for what I often think of as boundary-crossing friendships: relationships that require students to engage with people whose experiences may differ significantly from their own.
This idea is reflected in both student development theory and broader scholarship on dialogue and community. bell hooks (1994) argued that dialogue allows people to cross boundaries that may be created by race, class, gender, and other social identities. Similarly, William Blake’s famous assertion that “opposition is true friendship” suggests that meaningful relationships are not built through sameness alone, but through engaging with differences in productive ways.
As housing professionals, we are uniquely positioned to create conditions where these boundary-crossing friendships can develop.
This work extends beyond attendance numbers and programming counts. Belonging is often built through everyday interactions: a conversation in a residence hall lounge, a late-night discussion with a roommate, or a floor gathering where students discover common interests despite very different backgrounds. These seemingly small moments often become the foundation for community and connection.
Of course, differences can also create tension.
Roommate disagreements, misunderstandings, and interpersonal conflict frequently emerge during the first few weeks of the semester. Yet conflict itself is not necessarily a sign that something has gone wrong. As Schulman (2016) argues, conflict is often rooted in differences between people rather than harm itself. When students encounter new perspectives, values, or expectations, discomfort can be a natural part of the learning process.
Too often, institutions view conflict as something to eliminate. However, developmental theories suggest that growth frequently occurs when individuals encounter perspectives that challenge their existing ways of understanding the world. Baxter Magolda’s (2001, 2008, 2011) theory of self-authorship describes how people develop a stronger sense of identity and internal voice by engaging with competing ideas and experiences. In many ways, residence halls serve as laboratories for this process. Students learn not only who they are but also how to live, communicate, and collaborate with people who may see the world differently than they do.
This is why the first 30 days matter so much.
The goal is not simply to help students settle into a room. It is to help them begin building a community. It is creating environments where students feel supported enough to introduce themselves to someone new, curious enough to engage with a different perspective, and confident enough to navigate the inevitable moments of conflict that accompany living and learning together.
When we focus solely on the logistics of move-in, we risk missing the developmental opportunities that emerge during these early weeks. But when we intentionally create spaces for connection, dialogue, and relationship-building, we help students transform a residence hall into something more meaningful: a place where they belong.
The first 30 days do more than shape a student’s experience in housing. They can shape the friendships, perspectives, and sense of community that students carry with them throughout their entire college journey.
References
- Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2001). Making their own way: Narratives for transforming higher education to promote self-development. Stylus Publishing.
- Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2008). Three elements of self-authorship. Journal of College Student Development, 49(4), 269-284.
- hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.
- Hudson, M. (2018). First-year college friendships and their impact on persistence. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 55(1), 38-50.
- Schlossberg, N. K. (1984). Counseling adults in transition: Linking practice with theory. Springer Publishing Company.
- Schlossberg, N. K., Waters, E. B., & Goodman, J. (1995). Counseling adults in transition: Linking practice with theory (2nd ed.). Springer Publishing Company.
- Schulman, S. (2016). Conflict is not abuse: Overstating harm, community responsibility, and the duty of repair. Arsenal Pulp Press.
