"DEAD" week

To keep with the trend of the last few blog posts I thought I'd talk a little about how dead week and finals week goes for RAs. Obviously this is the worst and kinda best part of the semester. It's so stressful trying to finish up classes yet so relieving when they're finally over. Well try adding on the stress of checking out anywhere from 15-45 residents all while studying for finals and being there as a reference for their finals as well. It can get really hectic around here. This is where residence life comes in handy. Yes it is super stressful trying to make sure everyone gets checked out properly and all that but I wouldn't have it any other way. Being able to have 46 girls around me all going through the craziness of finals is awesome. Sounds crazy right?!? Think of it as a support system. Everyone can go throughout the day studying together and then when a break is needed, well right there is a bunch of people willing to do anything to tear their eyes away from their books for a little bit. At the same time those same people that are willing to take breaks with you will also make sure that that break isn't too long, and that you do get back to doing the studying that you're supposed to be doing. So yes, it is crazy. But it's crazy in a great way. I hope everyone has a successful dead week and finals week and ends this semester in the best way possible. 

Good luck!!

How accurate is this statement?

RAs and the holidays

Happy holidays everyone!! This will be a short post. I just wanted to talk a bit about what RAs have to do during the holidays. Some residents have to stay over breaks like this. Especially if they're international. So obviously there has to be someone in the building to make sure all these people are still safe and that the building is running smoothly. It's a pretty basic duty where you only sit in the office for an hour and then do rounds a couple times around the building. Thankfully I was able to go home for this holiday and spend it with my family but unfortunately there are people who don't get to do that. So whether they're an RA, a department store cashier, or even a soldier let's all take the time to be thankful that were able to be with family and remember the sacrifices of others. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Popcorn Probs

Lately my building has been having a major problem with fire alarms going off. It's really truly amazing how many people don't know how to cook in a microwave before they come to college. Some of my girls on my floor even want to create an entrance exam for people to have to cook popcorn successfully before being accepted to college. 

You are probably laughing pretty hard right now but if you have ever lived in the dorms you know exactly what I'm talking about. For most common sense people popping popcorn isn't that complicated. You set it for a time and you stand there until the popping slows down. For others though this is a completely strange concept. My second year as an RA we had a person set popcorn in the microwave and leave it. The fire alarm went off and we went into the kitchen to find black smoke rolling out of the microwave with 9 minutes still left on the timer. What makes people do stupid things like this?? This year we've had alarms go off during the day, early in the morning, late at night, but my favorite and my floors worst was this last Halloween night when the fire alarm went off at 3 am!! Crazy people!!

It's not always popcorn though. I've had fire alarms go off for sausage, pancakes, boiling water, and even pizza. My favorite however is the lovely residents who "forget" to add water to their Ramen noodles and then proceed to cook it thinking everything will be fine. That is the worst smell in the world let me tell you! So for all of you that plan to have kids in the future and want them to attend college, make sure you teach them how to cook the basics, especially microwavable things that can smoke a lot. That way they don't become the hated resident of the building.

Programming

Programming is a huge part of being an RA in order to be able to create a strong community. We do floor programs, joint programs and all halls. We actually just got through doing an all hall program to raise money for Habitat for Humanity. The program was Pie an RA. Basically we charge 50 cents per pie to be thrown into the face of an RA by a resident. This is so much fun for the residents to be able to "get back" at their RAs or just tease em and have fun with em for a bit. Then the staff has some fun too throwing around the extras. We had a blast during clean up throwing extra tubs of cool whip at each other and really making an even bigger mess of things!
These programs are such a blast. They can range from anything like a philanthropy project like the Pie an RA to educational things like how to cook in a microwave. It's so much fun to be able to relax and enjoy time with the residents and with the staff all at the same time. This personally is one of my favorite parts of the job. Being able to put work into a plan to get a community together. Putting so much work into each program that eventually you don't even have to plan a program for your floor to hang out. That's the end goal is for your floor to be able run itself.

A staff of AWESOME

With this job comes some really awesome people to work with. I'm so lucky to have such an awesome staff to have my back. Everyday I wake up knowing that if anything happens whether it be work related, class related or personal I have an amazing group of people to call for help. And it's not just the staff in your individual building. So for me, since I'm in a larger building, I have a staff of 9. But thanks to our awesome Area Coordinators who put together training every year, they make sure that we bond with all of the staff as a whole. No matter what I know I will always have a little over 40 people that I could call for help with anything. That's an amazing feeling to be able to have. Especially when this job is so different than others. It's nice to know you have so many people that you can call and vent to that know exactly what you're talking about without having to explain much at all. They have a pretty darn good idea of what you're going through. 

My immediate coworkers are extremely awesome though. They all have their strengths that help make us work together as a unit. We have a few that are extremely outgoing, that we can rely on to bring all the residents down for our programs or hype up the staff when we're getting a little too serious. We have our more emotional people that keep everyone bonded and a little more on task. Then we have our more analytical people that help us plan out everything properly and be as prepared as possible for any situation. All of the staff is great at keeping everyone together. We have our bumps in the road, just like all coworkers do, but with this excellent bunch of people nothing can stop us. I wanted to share some of the awesome memes that decorate our office. These are some of the staff members ways of cheering everyone up, or just helping give a little laugh for the day. 

 

Opportunities!

Within this job you get to learn a lot of really important life skills. As soon as you get hired you're immediately signing onto a leadership role of anywhere from 15-50 residents. That right there is a big step in life. You learn so much about yourself when you have so many people relying on you to help them with an endless list of things. Once you move past your residents then you also have these staff members and a boss that you have to work with. With most jobs this is normal to have staff members that you collaborate on projects with and occasionally meet with to touch base on things. But with most jobs, you go home at 5 pm and don't see those people again until 8 am the next morning, and that's just Monday through Friday. My job is a little different. Not only do I work with these people daily, but I also live with them, eat most meals with them, and hang out with them on a pretty regular basis. That's a lot of time spent with the same people everyday. So this is another important skill that you kind of learn as you go along. You not only learn how to work with people but also how to be able to resolve issues so that you can continue to work with those people. It's important to make sure that your staff doesn't have issues because these are people that you need to have your back. Especially during big incidents.

Something that I'm getting to experience this year is being able to have the opportunity to plan and put on a huge conference for Resident Assistants from all over the four state area. Pittsburg State is hosting this conference and I am a member of the executive committee that is putting it on and leading the whole thing. This is giving me so much insight into planning a major event, doing the groundwork for an event, and prepping all of the behind the scenes things that go into something like this. This conference is a huge opportunity for all of the RAs that attend. We get to meet people from all over and learn how they handle different situations differently than we do, discuss ideas about programs and trade back and forth ideas about decorations and all kinds of stuff. We learn all kinds of new activities and then get to hear from a really awesome key note speaker to get us excited about our job again and send us home with lots of inspiration and drive to do the best that we can.

Being a member of this committee is really giving me a huge learning opportunity to prepare for my future career. At the end of this year I plan on going on to grad school to get my masters in Student Affairs. This will give me the ability to become an Area Coordinator, which is the person in charge of the staff and the entire building as a whole. I'm really excited for this opportunity and can't wait to get started. I've already been researching schools and talking to all of my bosses getting help in prepping for interviews and things like that. I am extremely blessed to be surrounded by such an amazing housing staff that's willing to help me become the person that I want to be. 

A drunken weekend

So I know I said I'd tell funny stories about my job and today I'll do a little of that. But first I wanna give a little behind the scenes info on what our job requirements are. I saw in most of the comments where most of you talked about how you had lived in the residence halls at some point so some of you will know what I'm talking about. Every month we have requirements for our job. Do you remember all those name tags, or as we call them, door decs? We have to create a new one of those every month, along with a new bulletin board. They don't have to be connected in theme but the bulletin board does have to be creative in some way. Whether it be informative or just inspirational or fun they have to look professional, well thought out, and provide something for our residents. I already talked some about our programs but those are our other requirements. Weekly we have to do some type of active program, all hall, or passive program. This is all to help us create a community and connect our residents. There's a schedule that's given to us that tells us what is required for us each week. For example, this week is an active week so tomorrow night while I'm on duty I'm gonna set up a spa night to help them relax after a long week of lots of studies. 

Now for a funny story. At least I think it's funny. As everyone knows the first home game of the season means a big party weekend for Pitt. This really impacts the residence halls because everyone goes out and tailgates and then goes to either fraternities or house parties, gets trashed and comes back to the halls. Unfortunately not everyone makes sure they have people to take care of them and make sure they get to bed safely without causing problems. This is where my job comes into play. The first football weekend I got to stay up until 5am Friday and Saturday night because of incidences involving residents. Personally I love drunk people. That's one reason why I'm doing this job for a third year. I love taking care of people when they come back drunk, I love watching them dance around and make fools of themselves, and I love taking care of my girls when they come back crying because of some jerk at the party or some terrible friend. So to me this weekend was a lot of fun. We had all kinds of people that came back drunk. I had one guy that ended up getting in trouble because he refused to quiet down after running through the building and barrel rolling down the hallway in front of me. We had a couple of people that brought alcohol back into the building and didn't seem to understand why they were getting in trouble. Mainly because they were too drunk to understand anything. And last but not least we had another resident who actually tried to throw a party in a room. The funny part about that one was him trying to come up with excuses after he got caught. 

We never want to get people into trouble. Going out and getting drunk is fine if that's what you want to do. I totally did that before I became an RA. And we're very big on making sure that the residents know they have a safe home to come back to after they go out. It's just trying to make sure the parties and craziness doesn't come back with them. That's where it becomes tricky.