Start by looking around

You don't need to fill out your profile or have something to share immediately. Just have a look around first.

The community is where students drop off whatever is on their minds — questions, random thoughts, small wins, frustrations, experiences, or things they would like another perspective on.

If something feels familiar, you can reply and share your own experience.

Inside a thread, replies stay chronological. A direct reply starts a new conversation, while a reply to another student stays visibly connected to it. You can follow a conversation without posting and choose whether you are sharing an experience, offering a practical tip, or asking a follow-up question.

Nothing has to be serious enough to belong here.

Your anonymous little corner

Your username is generated automatically. Your profile gives others a little context about the person behind the anonymous name — without revealing who you actually are.

If you signed in with edu-ID, CommonRoom stores the pairwise identifier for your account, not your SWITCH name or institutional email address. Your optional contact email is entered by you separately and is never shown publicly.

You don't have to complete it before doing anything else. Look around first and come back to it whenever you want. Once you are signed in, you can find your profile and settings through the avatar menu in the top right.

Add something in “About me”, share a funny fact, or answer an icebreaker so your profile feels less like a soulless bot profile. You can change everything later — just remember to save your changes.

Tags are things you can relate to

Add things you have experienced, are currently dealing with, or simply know something about. They help others find people who might understand where they are coming from.

The tag list is shared rather than fully custom, so similar experiences stay findable instead of being split across lots of almost-identical tags. If something important is missing, you can suggest it through contact or feedback.

Found someone? Say hi.

Send them a short chat request and tell them what you'd like to talk about. They can accept or decline it — no awkward commitment on either side.

You need a private contact email to send and receive chat requests. It can be any valid email address and lets CommonRoom notify you without requiring you to keep checking the website.

Your fun fact or icebreaker is included with the request to make the first contact a little less anonymous and awkward. Once they accept: yayyyyy! You can start talking anonymously 1:1.

Your requests and active conversations live in the Chat Index. New messages and request updates show up under the activity bell, where a green dot lets you know that something new happened.