College is a time to learn, make friends, discover yourself and of course, party. While everyone was out partying and living it up in college, I was the one who was breaking up the parties. Why? Because I chose to be an RA.

Some might ask, "Why would anyone want to be an RA in college?" Contrary to popular belief, I did not become an RA to ruin other students' college experiences. I became an RA because I wanted to be more involved on my campus and I wanted to make a difference. Also, the free room and board helped a bit in making my decision too.

I was an RA for 2 1/2 years out of my 3 1/2 years of college. What most students didn't know was that I was a resident in the dorms at one time too. I understood the struggles of being a student who dormed and I too did not like the RAs. It wasn't until I was on the other side that I realized that RAs are not bad people. We do not go out looking for trouble, we do not wake up every morning with the thought that we are going to ruin someone's night. We all have a common goal and that was to help make the college experience better for our residents. To better understand what it was really like to be an RA, I want to share my confessions:

I loathed writing incident reports.

I think every RA does.Whenever the duty phone rang my heart would start racing because I knew that I was about to walk into a situation that I did not want to deal with. Most of the time I would grab another RA to come with me so that I wasn't the only one looking like the bad guy. Whenever the door to the dorm room would open and a party scene would be going on in front of me, my anxiety would kick in because the situation was overwhelming. You have to think fast and look in every corner and under every bed to make sure that you got everything you needed for the incident report. What sucked the most was having to take residents into the bathroom to drain their alcohol. It was both awkward and disappointing--mostly because we were wasting good liquor!

While dealing with incidents, I would talk to the residents calmly and in a friendly matter and if they were nice back to me then I would emphasize that they were respectful and cooperative in the incident report. This sometimes helped during their hearing with the Dean. If I had to deal with a difficult resident who yelled at me and threw a bottle at my head (yes, this has happened) then I would make sure the Dean knew about it. I also want to be clear on one thing, there is no such thing as an incident report quota. However, it did look a little strange when an RA was the only one in their building who never wrote an incident report when the other RAs have.

I lost a few friends and it was tough.

What was worse than dealing with a typical incident report was having to write up my friends. I had the unfortunate experience of being an RA to a hallway filled with students in my program and my best friends. My friends were partiers so there were times when I had to deal with a situation that involved them. Situations like those were hard to deal with but I had to remember that this was a job that I chose and at the end of the day, my friends aren't going to be the ones paying for my dorm room fees when I get fired for not doing my job correctly. Also, this was a great way for me to find out who my real friends are.

I stopped going out with my friends.

When I became an RA a fine line was drawn between the residents and I and I was no longer a typical student. I was now someone who was constantly being watched and I had to be the one to set a good example. My first couple months as an RA I would still go out to parties off campus with my friends but that quickly changed once some of the residents began to see me as the enemy. If a picture was posted online of me hanging out with my friends with alcohol around, I would get into trouble. My social life became non-existent after a while and I was no longer invited to go out.

I worked very hard to put together fun and interesting events for my residents.

Planning events was a little tough because I had to stay within a tight budget and I had to create events that related to a specific theme that was less than interesting to my residents. There were times when I would spend hours and weeks planning an event that nobody attended. I had to have at least 5 residents attend in order for me to get credit for it. If less than 5 residents showed up then I would have to re-create the event and if I didn't re-create the event then I would go on probation. Events were not easy to put together. I would put so much thought into the events that I thought my residents would enjoy. I had some very successful events like "Laundry Olympics" and a field trip to an indoor trampoline park, and some not-so-successful events like "How to Study" and "Resume Building 101." I learned that when I had to do events that fell into a category like academic success and wellness, to find a creative way to make those events fun. Also, having food at my events really helped with getting residents to come.

Being an RA helped to shape me into the person that I am today.

Once I got through all of the drama of being an RA, I realized that this was one of the most rewarding experiences of my college career. I met life-long friends and I grew so much as a person. Dealing with tough situations helped to improve my problem-solving skills and I learned to work better in a team. I tried very hard to make the college experience better for my residents and if I made a difference in one person's life than that makes the experience for me worth it.