I’m writing this after my very first day of check-ins at the end of my first RA camp. This past week has been fun, boring, scary, and tiring. It’s hard to cram all you need to know about being a Resident Assistant into one week, but somehow we did it. Now I’m going to cram that week into 10 things I learned.

1. RAs do a lot more than help with check-ins and do fire drills.

RAs let people into rooms, respond to noise violations, act as a therapist, act as a judge, protect the residents, and do the stuff no one wants to do or thinks about. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

2. Fire drills are harder than you think they’d be.

I live in the smallest hall on campus, and it still took me forever to check all of my rooms on my hall when we did a practice fire drill. Opening every door and looking for people that are hiding is not fun. Sorry residents if my yelling at you makes me sound like I hate you.

3. I have a love/hate relationship with bulletin boards and door decs.

Pinterest has some great ideas, but nowhere on the pin does it say how much time it actually takes to make the cute boards. My board took me all day to do, and my door decs took me all night. By the time I was done, I never wanted to make another door dec…but then I got on Pinterest and I have my boards and door decs picked out for the rest of the year.

4. The cafeteria ladies are really nice.

I never thought they weren’t, but when you’re one of 15 students living on campus for a week you build relationships with the staff. Also, the housekeeping ladies are hilarious.

5. The resident halls are creepy when no one is living in them.

Everything was fine until I heard noises coming from the room above me… when no one is living in that suite yet.

6. The other RAs and RDs are great.

I’ve never met half of the RAs before, and I’ve never really talked to the RDs. Some I’ve never even seen before. It’s really hard to meet people outside of your major and organizations you are a member of, and after this week I’ve made some pretty cool friends.

7. I still hate activities like dodgeball and kickball.

Every night of RA camp we had a scheduled activity that was meant to bring all of us together. These activities were all physical that involved running and/or some sort of hand/eye coordination. If you know me, you know I don’t run and am one of the most uncoordinated people on the face of the planet. Not that I ever wanted to know, but dodgeball is just as terrifying as it was in middle school. Who took a ball to the face? That’s right, this girl.

8. Check-ins are stressful.

We didn’t even have many students check-in on the first day, but stuff still managed to go wrong. I was worrying if I filled out the sheets correctly, if I gave residents the right keys, and if I was friendly enough. Oh, and all of the keys for the girls’ side were mixed up so we had to run around matching keys to the right doors. Good times, good times.

9. I’m so glad I decided to become an RA.

Yeah, the scholarship is nice, but this job is going to put me out of my comfort zone and ultimately make me a better person.

And probably the most important rule of all:

10. Call security.

I’m not kidding; every single scenario you could possibly come up with has that as the first step.

There you have it. I'm so excited to see what's in store for this semester.