If you've ever lived in a residence hall on a college campus, then you have had a Resident Assistant. The RA position includes programming, building community, and ensuring the safety of the students. RAs are commonly misunderstood; to break the stigma, I've compiled a few main things that students should know about their Resident Assistants.
1. Don't touch our decorations.
Blood, sweat, and tears go into those. Please do not touch them. Just like teachers, Resident Assistants put in so much work and money into their floor and residents. More than you will ever know and more than we're willing to admit. It is so frustrating when someone tears down or vandalizes our bulletin boards, flyers, and door tags. Decorating the floor and making it homey is a lot harder than it looks. It isn't absolutely necessary to put in so much time and effort, but we want you to love your home.
2. We are NOT out to get you.
Speaking on behalf of most people in my position, I can guarantee that Resident Assistants are not out to get you. Despite popular belief, we do not get satisfaction out of documenting your poor decisions. Incident reports can take an insane amount of time. Especially at 4 in the morning when you're exhausted, delusional, and have an exam in the morning. If you respect your RA, I can promise they will respect you right back.
3. Work out your roommate conflicts before coming to us.
There is nothing more frustrating than trying to help someone through a conflict, in which case the other person involved isn't even aware of the conflict. How do you expect to get through it without actually speaking to the other person? While confrontation can be scary and frustrating, it's a part of adult hood. If you can't confront your room mate about their habit of drunk eating your Cheetos, how will you ever negotiate for a raise, or negotiate with your spouse about your future home? While we would love to give you advice on how to approach a situation properly, it's rather hard to do so when there has been no attempt made on your part.
4. Go to the programs.
RA's spend so much time and money planning these programs, and advertising, hoping for a good turn out so we don't embarrass ourselves to our coworkers and supervisors. Also, it's important to note that all the money for pizza and condoms is not from our maxed out Discover card, but from your tuition and housing bill. All those random fees? Yup, some go to movie nights and educational pamphlets, through the Residence Life funding. Get the best out of your college time and go get your 10k worth of free food and other fun stuff! Plus your RA will love you that much more for showing your support!
5. College is meant to be the best time of your life.
Read that line again. College is meant to be the best time of your life. We know this. After all, we're in college too. We genuinely want you to have your well deserved, hot mess, four regret-filled years. However, we have to think about all the things you don't bother to think about. While you're out partying and sneaking violations into your room, we're worrying about our residents' well being, most of the week. We want you to have fun, but within reason. You're an adult, and while you made it this far, we want you to make it past college. There's so much more to life than college, and your RA wants you to get to that part of your life. We want you to leave this institution with responsibility, memories, real world skills, and an overly exaggerated resume. While rules can be annoying sometimes, they're all in place with your best interest in mind. You may not see it now, but I promise, we want you to have the very best in life, even better than the Wednesday night Rolling Rock specials at the bar.
