You may have heard it by a different title, but most university dorms have something similar to a Resident Assistant. This is the person in the dorm who enforces rules, plans events, and is your go-to person anytime you have a problem or a question. They're basically your glorified hall monitor, or poor man's landlord, and I just finished my first year as one! My year as an RA was hectic and exhausting, yet it was probably the most rewarding thing I've done in college thus far. This job taught me a lot, and here are a few of the things I learned:
1. Pinterest is your best friend.
Seriously, Pinterest is an invaluable resource as an RA. Need an event idea? Pinterest. Need bulletin board inspiration? Pinterest. Need door decoration templates? Pinterest!
2. You can (and will) function without sleep.
My residents were extremely loud for a solid 20 hours of the day. Whether it was blasting music, yelling in the hallways coming home from the bars, or getting locked out of their rooms in the middle of the night, my residents kept me up a lot. On top of the times when other college responsibilities kept me up, there were quite a few nights that I did not get ample sleep solely because of my residents. Naps were also out of the question because again, my residents were hellions sometimes. With the help of extreme amounts of caffeine, I made it through way too many of these brutal, sleepless nights.
3. Your residents might not come to your events... ever. It doesn't mean they hate you.
I planned a lot of events that took a lot of hard work, and most of them were barely attended. Most of the time I ended up conning my residence into coming by starting them in the common area where my residents already were. Like everyone in college, my residents had lives, friends, and other responsibilities. Their RA's events were not usually high on their list of priorities. I had some really cool successful events, too, but they were few and far between. One of the major lessons I learned about events is that providing food is the number one way to get higher attendance and not to take it personally if people don't show up!
4. Your residents will notice the things you do. Be careful!
As an RA, you have a certain amount of people who are always aware of you and who are watching you. You live in a fishbowl. Your residents will remember when they see people leaving your room early in the morning, when you have an over 21 wristband on from a bar but you're only 19, and when they haven't seen you in the showers in a suspiciously long time. This isn't always a bad thing, as they'll notice when you're down or when you usually try to nap so they should try and be quieter. There are things you think you're getting away with, and trust me, you're not. Be mindful that the last thing you want is for your residents to have some sort of "dirt" on you, because that makes your job as an authoritarian a lot harder. The more your residents know, the more your boss knows.
5. Your residents might become your friends.
Your residents will notice you, but you'll also notice them. You'll all be spending a lot of time in your dorm, and if you're doing your job well, you'll probably get to know them really well. It's possible, maybe even likely, for you to really become friends with some of them. I have a couple of residents who I would really consider friends. I have residents who have come to me with personal stuff, but I have some who I have really confided in too. Sometimes you break that barrier between RA and resident. Sometimes you just click, and that's usually a really good thing.
6. Sometimes helping your residents is more important than being their friend.
Here comes the tough part. At the end of the day, you are an RA. There's certain unfriendly things you have to do sometimes and they really suck when you have a good relationship with your residents. When you have residents who are being disrespectful to other residents, residents who are doing things that could get themselves in real trouble, or when residents are doing things that are really harmful to themselves, you have to intervene. At least for me, there was often times a lot of cognitive dissonance was in my role. There were things that I had to handle as an RA based on my training that I felt were wrong or that I really just wanted to handle like a friend. That's one of the things that makes it a job. It's not always the easiest thing, but the well-being of your residents really is more important than your relationship with them. If you helped them, even if it means writing them up or calling the police, you did your job.
7. Your residents will all need you in different ways, and they might not always tell you when they need you.
Your residents are probably going to be 18-20 years old. If they're freshman this will probably be their first time living independently ever. They may think they can handle it, but they might not be able to all of the time. They might have issues with general living, school, their friends, their mental health, or their personal health and 9 times out of 10 they won't tell you. It's important to be aware of your residents and who they are as people so that you will be able to tell if something is wrong. You might have some residents who just need you because they can't figure out how to register for classes, but you might also have some who are severely depressed and really need help. There are signs for these issues, so its important to be present and alert to see them. For the residents who will want to reach out to you, whether it be about themselves or their roommate(s), its important that you are accessible. Your residents need to know that you're there for them. I have gotten 2 p.m. texts asking me how to work the laundry machine and I've gotten 5 a.m. texts from residents who are terrified about the safety of their roommate. As an RA, you're the closest authority figure to your residents. They will need you, even if they don't always express it.
8. You have to trust your instincts, trust your training, and trust your coworkers.
Like most jobs, RAs have training. My training was all about how to handle situations that might arise in the dorm like roommate conflicts and alcohol abuse. We also received training for more serious things such as reporting a sexual assault, helping someone with suicidal intentions, and drug abuse. In the RA position it is absolutely crucial that you trust your training as well as your instincts, because sometimes situations come up and they have to be dealt with right away. There isn't always time to phone a friend, but luckily a lot of the time there is. When it comes to being an RA, your staff is vital to your overall success. You might be on duty with them, you might have to plan events with them, and you might need each other's help in certain situations. I called on my fellow RAs for resident issues all the time, but it took me a while to get used to how differently some people handle things. There were things that I would always handle internally that other RAs may involve my boss or even the police for. There were things that I would say that my coworkers never would and vice versa. People did their job differently than I did, and admittedly sometimes that drove me nuts. I learned how to deal with it and I grew to appreciate it, but it was not something I really expected going into the job.
9. People in your dorm come from all different backgrounds which will affect how they live in the community.
For most, dorm-style living is new. Even if you've had residents who grew up in apartments, they probably still lived with someone besides a random stranger who sleeps three feet away from them. I had residents from across the country and across the globe. I had residents from both extremes of the socioeconomic spectrum, some from cities and some from farms, some who were religious and some who were far from it, and obviously they were all really different. Not only did they need me in different ways, they were just inherently different. My residents were all raised differently and grew up in different environments which really did affect how they lived in the dorm. I got to interact with people who I didn't even live in the same country as and I got to experience how differently they lived their lives than I do. As an RA, or just as a college student in general, it's important to be open minded and accepting about other people's identities. I learned that early on.
10. It's really easy to let this job take over your life.
Being that this isn't your classic hourly job, it's easy to get really caught up in this job. When I was home, I was working—which essentially meant that I was pretty much always working. There were weeks on end I really didn't have to do anything but there were weeks where I felt as if I was more of an RA than I was a person. This can all depend on your residents and your boss, but it also lies a lot in you. This job can deal with a lot of touchy-feely emotional things which makes all the more easy to be sucked into it. It's crucial for your mental health to remember that you're a person first, a student second, and an RA third. Although rewarding, this job can be hard. As much as you want to be involved, I learned pretty quickly that you need to be careful and not get too absorbed in it.
My time as an RA has come to an end, and even though I complained about my job a lot, I'm so thankful I had the opportunity to do it. There are not any other jobs quite like that of an RA. Even though I would literally never do it again, I don't regret it. It was a crazy year, but I think I really successful one. I formed some great relationships with my residents and I feel like I really did make a difference in their college experiences. It was exhausting, often times heart-wrenching, and most of the time very empty, I really learned a lot as an RA.
