To my fellow Resident Assistants…
It’s going to be a year.
It’s going to be a year filled with wonderful moments. In these moments, we will laugh and connect with one another. We’ve survived training, and no doubt have become closer. Our staffs will become families. Sometimes we will want to shake one another out of frustration, but after a long night on duty, we know we’re there for one another. Through similar experiences and meals shared in the unofficial “RA Land” section of the Dining Commons, we will grow friendships we never expected.
Our year will be filled with so many ups. The connections we make with some of our residents will outshine all the policy violations and lack of sleep in the world. The laughs shared during individualized interactions, and the hugs from our Residents Director when we really need them, and the smiles on our residents’ faces at particularly effective programs will make us feel like a million bucks.
And yes, there will be downs as well. Feeling like the bad guy will never really go away when you’re documenting your fourth incident of the night. Roommate conflicts will make us want to pull our hair out, and there will always be a resident who seems to hate us for no good reason. Sometimes we’ll be up until 5 in the morning, or having a hard time falling asleep because we’re worried about getting all our paperwork in on time. It won’t be easy. But it will be worth it.
My first Thursday back on duty, a drunk upperclassmen yelled at me and my coworkers “RAs don’t mean shit!” after we asked her to quiet down outside the building. I felt awkward, as if I were being exposed as some power-hungry authoritarian finding incidents where there weren’t any. But as I took it in, I was kind of glad she felt that way. Obviously she had never had been found by an RA in a public restroom choking on her own vomit. She had never knocked on her RA’s door the morning after a sexual assault, wondering what to do with herself. She had never sat with an RA and confessed that she had been feeling so depressed she wanted to kill herself. In reality, she was lucky she felt that way about RAs.
There’s a reason RAs exist, and there’s a reason that we’ve been chosen to be those RAs. We are strong, and smart, and we genuinely care. It would be a shame to see those traits be underutilized, wouldn’t it? We’re here for our residents, and our community, and each other. Our year as RAs will be a lot of different things, but ultimately, it will be important. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll keep coming back for more because you realize just how vital you are to your school’s community.
It’s going to be a year, guys. But boy, have we got this.
