Resident Advisor [n.] : One who keeps residence halls from being destroyed and ensures a fun but safe community for students living on campus. One who puts up with a lot of crap and learns a lot of lessons in adulting.
The resident advisor life is one of the greatest student employment positions a person can take. It is relatively flexible, teaches you valuable life lessons, and gives you a paycheck for hanging out with friends. However, this job is not for everyone. Let's just say you know you're an RA when...
1. You can have a five minute conversation with someone, and immediately judge whether they're likely to start a fire with Easy Mac.
2. The greatest knee-jerk reaction you know is correcting someone who says the D-word.
Dorms are what our grandparents slept in. Residence Halls are where it's at.
3. You've gotten the scheduling thing down pat.
Between the office hours, programs, weekly meetings with supervisors, staff meetings, and duty nights, you know that color-coordination is your best friend. And you know, passing classes. School matters too, right?
4. You call students just two years younger than you "kids."
As if you were never a freshman.
5. You can't imagine sharing your space with a roommate again.
How does one accumulate so much crap over the course of four years?
6. Your crafting skills have improved to an at least kindergarten-acceptable level.
525,600 bulletin boards and door decs later, you can at least make a decent tree. Maybe.
7. You know how quickly a ringtone can induce a heart attack. Still, you're a pro in the midst of crisis.
We handle some crazy situations. You never know when you're about to grab someone a spare key, or call the cops to break up a gang fight. If we were to write a simple job description for RAs, it would read: Stay on toes at all time and try not to panic.
8. Your craziest college stories come from incident reports and long duty nights.
Poop on the walls? We've seen it. Intoxicated individuals in an elevator fight? No big deal. We're not doctors, but we're pretty familiar with gross body fluids, and we can solve any problem with painter's tape and a first aid kit.
9. You understand now why they don't let you live on your own before college. The freedom is too much.
10. You know how to keep a secret.
Confidentiality is key. RAs hear all the hilarious, traumatizing and bizarre stories. The only catch? We can never tell. So trust us, friends, if we can keep university secrets, we can definitely keep a secret about your fifth cousin twice removed who doesn't even go here.
11. Between your fellow RAs and your residents, you always have a fridge to raid, a Play Station to take over, and a family to support you when you need it.
Yeah, it's an RA's life for me.
