As a Resident Assistant myself, I know the ins and outs and the stresses of the job that I was lucky enough to get hired on to do. In fact, the theme that I used for my hall this year was none other than my favorite show, Friends, so I thought it was appropriate to explain life as a Resident Assistant to those who may not know what we deal with or feel on a daily basis. Overall, the feeling you get from knowing that you make a difference on your campus is much greater than the stress or tiring feeling any one of the things listed below give you, but it is worth laughing at our pain occasionally.
15. When the duty phone rings and wakes you up at 4 a.m. for a lockout.
14. When you catch one of your residents breaking college policy.
13. And when that same resident breaks policy again.
12. When none of your residents show up to the hall program that you worked on planning for weeks in advance.
11. When you're trying to plan your next hall program.
10. When you've been on duty three days in a row and you start questioning everything.
9. When you're introducing yourself to your new residents at the first hall meeting of the semester.
8. When you are talking to a resident about something they did and they try to lie to you.
7. Trying to play icebreakers with residents like...
6. When you have to keep quieting people down during quiet hours.
5. When a fellow RA tells you that they just completed their last weekend duty for the semester and you still have one more left.
4. When your late staff meeting was cancelled.
3. When you didn't think anyone would show up to your hall program, but there were more people there than usual AND they participated.
2. What your hall looks like when they finally build the level of community that you've been trying to get to all year.
1. When you realize the best decision you ever made was applying to be a Resident Assistant.
