A Year in the Life ...
Being a Resident Assistant is, in many respects, like being a parent. You wear a lot of hats, and you have to be prepared for anything.
One minute, you're a policeman, telling residents to turn their music down or stop rolling each other down the hall in office chairs.
The next minute, you're a nurturer, giving a homesick resident a shoulder to cry on or buying clean trash bags for a stomach-flu victim.
Then, you're a social coordinator, planning community-building programs for your hall or giving a bored resident ideas about what to do around town.
Finally, you're a friend, complaining about cafeteria food or sharing the story of how you failed your first college exam.
And all of this while balancing your own sanity, social life and schoolwork! Not an easy job, if you ask me. So why in the world would anyone do it?
For me, being an RA was a given. I've always been a people person and a good communicator, and I've always possessed a drive to help others. So when I transferred to Capital from Wittenberg, I volunteered my services. They placed me on a floor that I lovingly came to call "The Circus."
My floor was an interesting mix. One of my residents was an insomniac. One was a transfer student. One was openly gay. One was a non-traditional student, a guy who came back to get his degree later in life than the usual college student. You name it, we had it on our hall. I knew it was going to be a challenge, taking people who were so different from each other and bonding them together as a group.
I don't like to think of myself simply as a rule enforcer. True, there were noise and visitation violations ... and yes, a few cleanliness issues. But we handled them all pretty easily. I soon came to understand that my real job was to support my floor as a family.
That year, I helped my residents dealt with everything from painful breakups to procrastination. We coped with a power outage. We complained about our classes during late-night finals week popcorn breaks. We supported a resident who'd been kicked out of his parents' house. We perched on the bathroom counters, laughing and telling bad-date stories. We talked seriously about safe sex and underage drinking. We watched TV and played poker together. We locked ourselves out of our rooms more times than I ever thought possible. We had our share of tearful moments. By the end of the year, I'd lived through every situation they'd talked about in RA training ... and then some.
And then it happened.
Finals were over. My guys were packing up the last of their books and video games. I turned off the lights and closed the door of my room for the last time. And suddenly, I realized: these very different people had grown into a family, a community.
So if people ask me why I choose to be an RA, my answer is simple. Despite the ups and downs, the stresses and pains, there's something about shaking a resident's hand and having him say "thank you" that keeps me coming back for more.