Finding roomates isnt as big as a problem as you think , its finding a decent roomate that is hard . By roomate i assume you mean someone who shares the apartment but does NOT share your room otherwise you get even LESS personal space than you have now . What you probably want to be looking for are ads where someone is renting out a room . The people who do this are usually landlords , or the main tenant who rented the apartment and is subletting to you . Real estate agencies usually prefer to rent out the whole apartment only instead of individual rooms . Also note that there are many issues that can crop up . everything ranging from splitting utility bills to usage of appliances and maintenance issues . And there are a lot of dodgy landlords out there because they know that most people are not going to sue them for relatively minor stuff . Renting from a real estate agency or someone you know even if its a friend of your parents is a lot more safer and reliable . Ive had some pretty bad luck with landlords myself . One common trick that dodgy landlords pull is to tell you something over the phoneon the ad , but the contract they hand you to sign includes different terms , then they try to pressure you into signing it because you have already gone to the trouble of coming down for an inspection . I can tell you that your interaction with any housemates you may have will usually be nil unless you make the effort to get them to know them and hang out . In my experience , the stuff you see on sitcoms where housemates hang out all the time , take turns cooking , etc , is actually VERY rare . Usually housemates act like nearstrangers to each other and interact very little . I think your main problem would be if you could handle working full time and college at the same time . If you cant , then you cant afford to move out . You do not want to risk failing a course and having to pay to retake it . Given the option , i would personally try to get your college degree sorted out first , then move out once you can afford to work full time .