Not everyone grows up knowing they want to be the Director of Residence Life or a Dean of a college, but here I am wanting to do one or both of those things at some point.

The earliest memory of what I wanted to do when I grew up was to be the first female professional baseball player. I've never played baseball on an organized team.

The next memory was of wanting to be a teacher. Now, that still sort of holds. I would love to teach HIGHER EDUCATION classes, but I cannot stand children. My outlooks on teaching have changed since I was 12.

There was even a point that I was highly considering going to school to be a professional makeup artist. However, I barely like doing my own makeup in the morning let alone doing other peoples. I only really like doing special effects looks, and those take forever. I don't have the patience to do more than one creation a day.

What I finally fell in love with was making a difference in people's lives. I love seeing people grow from where they began to where they end up. That can be said about a plethora of different jobs, but nothing is quite like working in Residence Life at a college or university.

You get to see someone come in as a freshman and spend anywhere from a few months to a few years in the same place. They learn to adapt to their surroundings while maintaining their values and beliefs. You see their ups and downs, and you root for them while still making sure it doesn't interfere with your job.

While I have only been working in my current position for a few weeks, I can already see some growth and progress in the people I supervise as well as the people that they maintain. I know in the coming months and hopefully years that I will see even more growth and progress in these people as they continue on their own journeys to figure out where they want to end up when their time at school comes to a close.

However, what I love the most about working in Residence Life is the feeling of family and togetherness that a good office can bring.

I felt at home until my bosses at my undergrad left. I felt a bit alone and not as welcome in the last month until graduation. I had lost two supervisors to higher pursuits in the matter of a few months, and I was left to fend for myself for a while. While I loved most of my coworkers, the people who left made it feel like a real family for me. I had actually doubted my want to be in ResLife for a few months until I found myself adopted into a new group.

My coworkers I have now remind me of my beginning days in my little Resident Assistant position. I feel welcomed again, and I feel like a valued member of a team. I feel like my hard does get noticed, and I feel appreciated again. These past few weeks have reminded me that I am cut out for a job in Residence Life, and it really is something that I want to do for my career. I also feel like it'll keep me young at heart while I work with up and coming young adults.

I am loving my new family so far. They are all different in their own ways, and I can see how each of our personalities click together to create one cohesive team. I know not everyone is this lucky, but I love where I'm at.

Residence Life isn't for everyone, but I'm glad that it's for me.