Brown’s approach to matching first-year roommates starts with the magic of randomness

"Getting to know someone who has different interests than you will make you more open-minded as a person overall," Dellinger said.

Chen said the process encouraged her to look past her assumptions.

"I can get a broader experience and get to know more people, rather than come in with expectations of who I'm going to hang out with and what kind of people and things I am going to learn," Chen said. "There are so many genuinely amazing people here who come from so many different walks of life, and I've had an awesome time getting to know them."

Not every pair of first-year roommates is destined for lifelong friendship, but success stories are plentiful in speaking with current juniors and seniors, and alumni during reunion weekends on campus.

For Brown seniors Yabeke Zike and David Okoh, who were randomly paired as first-year roommates, the experience of living together prompted them to think more broadly. Zike is from Virginia, and Okoh is from Texas. Neither of them knew anyone who was attending Brown, and Providence felt novel and foreign.

"You are thrown into an unfamiliar situation, but the process really makes you accept it with open arms," recalled Zike, a computer science and economics concentrator. "Brown is such a free-thinking and free-spirited school, and I think this helps its students embrace that."

Four years after the pair met initially, Zike and Okoh's friendship has continued to grow. They still live together, now in an off-campus apartment.

"It was an opportunity to open myself up, learn new things and expand my way of thinking and way of living," said Okoh, a biomedical engineering concentrator. "Just living with someone else is a huge, huge step, especially if you've never done it before."

When Lucas and Rudolph-Larrea reflect on the random-roommate process, they're struck by their initial reservations. Rudolph-Larrea had taken a gap year between high school graduation and college, and Lucas thought she seemed worldly and a bit intimidating. To Rudolph-Larrea, a Providence native, Lucas' West Coast upbringing felt unfamiliar and far away.

"We are actually very different in many ways, but we're really similar personality-wise," Rudolph-Larrea said.

Outside of her economics coursework, Lucas is a social media editor for a female comedy campus publication, the Rib. During Rudolph-Larrea's time on campus, she has been involved with Fashion@Brown and contributes design and illustration to a student publication called the College Hill Independent.

"I've never been in a class with her, and we have very different schedules, but we happen to be very similar in personality and living style," Rudolph-Larrea said.

"I feel like we are very lucky," Lucas said. "And we're still best friends."

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