Hate your roommate? Algorithm helps you find a better one in college

Nanjing University in Jiangsu province is using big data to assign dormitories to freshmen in a bid to help early birds and night owls flock together.

The freshmen can fill in a detailed questionnaire on the university's website, including when they get up and go to bed, how often they change clothes and their willingness to share electricity and Wi-Fi fees.

The answers will then be put into an algorithmic model and the similarities between data sets will be analyzed so that students with similar habits can be assigned to the same dormitories.