For Graduating Roommates, Parting Is Filled with Emotion

Frances Lown (CGS’14, CAS’16) (from left), Angelica Silva (CGS’14, CAS’16), and Gabriella Vasquez (CGS’14, SAR’16,’18) said good-bye to their Comm Ave apartment, but not to each other, this week and prepared to take the next step. Photo by Jake Belcher

With just three days left until Commencement, roommates Angelica Silva (CGS’14, CAS’16), Gabriella Vasquez (CGS’14, SAR’16,’18), and Frances Lown (CGS’14, CAS’16) didn’t seem too stressed about packing up their Comm Ave apartment. Bright tapestries and posters remained on the walls and laptops and books sat on desks, even though classes had ended the week before.

The three were in denial.

“I have tried not to think about it, the fact that it’s our last week together,” Silva said.

“I feel like, in terms of friendship, you have to look for the friends who will help you be your best self and not try to change you,” Vasquez said. “It’s cliché, but true. I’ve never felt more myself than when I’m with my two roommates. Actually, you know what? My best friends.”

Sure, graduating seniors felt excitement and anticipation about their impending Commencement. Families were coming to town, parties thrown, and new grads stepped on the Marsh Plaza seal without risking failure (legend has it that if you step on it before Commencement, you won’t graduate). But many soon-to-be graduates expressed sadness about leaving roommates they had become close to.

Roommates can be a hit-or-miss proposition for incoming freshmen. Students can choose to be matched randomly or decide on someone they meet at Orientation or hook up with on the incoming class Facebook page. No matter how they meet, chances are they’ll be living with someone they barely know.

So it’s a pleasant surprise when a random roommate pairing ends up being successful, as it was for Nick Medeiros (SAR’16) and Chris Poirier (CGS’14, SAR’16,’18). The two played against each other on rival Boston-area high school soccer teams. To their astonishment, they were matched as roommates freshman year and have lived together all four years, in a spacious StuVi apartment as seniors.

Chris Poirier (CGS’14, SAR’16,’18) (left) and roommate Nick Medeiros (SAR’16) made an effort to attend Red Sox games and watch their favorite TV show together. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

“We stuck together because we became really close friends, and it worked out,” Medeiros said. “We always went out together and met each other’s friends. I introduced him to his girlfriend.”

Medeiros started off enrolled in the Questrom School of Business, not really knowing what he wanted for a career. He admits to having a “quarter-life” crisis, searching for a course of study that would be more people-oriented than a job in business. Poirier pushed him to consider Sargent, and he is now in a five-year program to become a physical therapist. “We’ve had a lot of late-night life talks,” Poirier said. “Relationships, pep talks, career stuff.”

“This year we made a tradition of hanging out to watch The People v. OJ Simpson on FX, no matter how busy we were,” said Medeiros, listing some of their favorite things to do together. “Both of our moms are Italian, and back during freshman year—in typical Italian-mom fashion—they would bring us food on Sunday afternoons and we would have this huge feast. The last two years, since we had an apartment with a kitchen, we took over the tradition.”

The duo learned to cook and started making their own Sunday feasts. Word got out, and their friends started to show up with breakfast supplies, hoping to get other meals from the budding chefs as well.

Interviewed at the end of Senior Week, Medeiros described the run-up to Commencement as “fun, but very bizarre. There’s like this overarching cloud. It feels like two seconds ago we were in Rich Hall, introducing ourselves. It goes by quick.”

Martine Subey (COM’16) and Shannon Clark (Questrom’16) became roommates junior year, when they shared a small room studying abroad in London. Their fervor for all things British was evident during a recent visit to the Mountfort Street apartment they shared this year—a Union Jack hung on the wall and a pop-up London picture book sat on the coffee table.

Martine Subey (COM’16) (left) and Shannon Clark (Questrom’16) met volunteering freshman year. Photo by Cydney Scott

At the end of May, the women will leave for a two-and-a-half week trip to Iceland, Barcelona, and Lisbon. Since they had lived together abroad, they figured they would be good travel companions. They compare their year-and-a-half relationship to being like sisters. “I feel like we get it when the other one is in a funk or is cranky or doesn’t want to talk, and we don’t take offense,” Clark said. “There’s never awkward silence.”

“We know when to give each other space,” Subey added.

Moments apart have been rare since they became roommates, their inseparability something of a running gag with their friends. “People joke about us being a married couple,” Clark said. “I showed up somewhere and Martine wasn’t there, and everyone asked where she was. People expect to see the other one when one of us shows up.”

This summer, the two will live apart. Clark will be training in California for a job with consulting firm Workday, and Subey will move to New York City to work for a health-care public relations firm. Clark hopes to end up in New York when her training is complete. The women said that while they are excited about their European trip and their new jobs, they feel an element of sadness. “Little things will set me off,” Subey said. “I came home from returning my last textbook, and I started crying. We know we want to be back in Boston in a few years.”

Silva, Vasquez, and Lown will also say good-bye temporarily. Lown is heading to France in October to teach ESL classes for a year, Vasquez will remain at BU for a grad school program in occupational therapy, and Silva will be working in downtown Boston as a paralegal for an immigration law firm. Asked whether their friendship would survive distance, Lown said, “It’s not an option—we are going to stay in touch.”

“It will be very weird next year,” said Vasquez, who will live alone in StuViII and work as a resident assistant. “I’ve never lived alone, ever. I shared a room with my brother growing up. Living with Franny and Angelica has shown me what kind of living space I need to be a functioning human being. I was excited to go home at the end of the day.”

Silva echoes the sentiment. “I come from a large family, so I’ve always had a roommate. But I feel like in this space, I learned from Franny and Gabriella how to be my best self.”