Resident Assistants: A Beginner's Guide

I have been a resident assistant at a large college in the Northeast for one year and two months. I have been called a friend, a parent, and the antichrist. To some people, I am a source of comfort in times of panic and stress. To others, I am the panic and the stress. I've made lives easier, and I've made them exorbitantly difficult. I've been thanked, and I've been threatened.

The life of an RA is a 24/7 walk along a very thin, grey line. We have to be the friendly RA: the one who bakes cookies during finals week, who answers the door at five o' clock in the morning without complaining, who lends residents a shoulder to cry on when their roommates eat the last cup of Yoplait. We are also the ball breakers: we pound on doors when the music is too loud, we call the police and send only moderately drunk kids to the hospital, and we stand without sympathy when residents say, "But I'll lose my scholarship!" My response is always the same: look, kid, I don't make the rules; I just enforce them.

The problems we face and the issues we handle are never black or white. I've done things wrong, right, and seemed-right-at-the-time. Since August of 2009, I've had a total of four weeks of rigorous training and 11 months on the job. Half the time, I still have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I don't know the answers to everything, I screw up more often than not, I've made some seriously questionable decisions (professionally, personally, and those awful times where the two overlap), and I'm considered relatively good at this.

What makes this job so difficult is that you never face the same situation twice. You might have had a hundred alcohol incidents, medical transports, and roommate conflicts, but they are always different. People have a tendency to complicate everything, including (especially?) the things that are simplest. With that said, all the training in the world is still going to leave you in the dark and feeling unprepared.

My goal is to leave you confident. Your job is not easy. You're going to mess up. You're going to feel confused, lost, scared, pissed off. Sometimes you're going to feel like a real jackass. It happens. I'll share with you my shining moments, my utter failures, and a few of the worst days of my life. Be confident, keep your integrity, learn to improvise, stay on your toes, and remember to just relax. I hope you'll take away some good tips and learn from these stories.

I'm always interested in hearing from others, so feel free to share, ask questions, and give suggestions.

See you around!