RA Life

What RA training is going to look like this year...

Jokes aside, whether you’re a returning RA, new RA, or whether your university is even welcoming students back to campus, stay safe!

Our jobs are often considered essential even before COVID-19 happened and we’ll show up like we always have and always will. Care for your residents - this is new territory and comes with added stress of being away from their families and trying to navigate a “normal” university life amidst the pandemic. Of course, always care for yourself as well. Raise your hand if you need help, this is new territory for us too and we’ll learn as we go.

How you look:

How you feel:

Wellllllllll......I actually stayed an RA/CA all the way from sophomore year through graduation; so I didn’t exactly leave it prematurely! However, my last year and a half was pretty rough because I was mentally checked out and focused on graduating. Thankfully, I came to the realization during my last semester that my time as an RA and as a student in general was coming to an end, so I wanted to “go out with a bang”. 

Now this could be totally different for you, and you might even laugh at my experience, but here’s what I did:

My “thing” all throughout my time as an RA was my door decs. I was quite literally “famous” for them both with my residents and coworkers and Tumblr as well. I always took pride in them and it was the most enjoyable part of my job! So I dedicated my last semester to doing the best damn door decs I could crank out! As dumb as it sounds, it gave me the most incredible closure. I felt like I was leaving on a great note and I will always remember the very last door decs I ever put up! (My Frozen ones). 

The point I’m getting at is to find the thing that you love most about being an RA and capitalize on it. Go out with a bang and do the very best you possibly can! Not only will you remember it, but it’ll make you feel good about your time there and it’ll likely give you the closure you’re looking for.

However, as I just reread your question, it has occurred to me that it appears you have already left the position and have some regrets of some sort. If that’s the case, then the best way to get closure is to think back to all the accomplishments you’ve done during the position. Whether it was a great door dec, bulletin board, program, or you helped a resident with a problem, I’ll be willing to bet you made a difference in someone’s life during your time there. That’s what you need to be thinking about; not the stress or the difficulties because those are over and I doubt five years from now you’ll even remember them. 

Don’t panic! It’s definitely tough but not impossible! The biggest thing that will help you is “establishing dominance” in the first floor meeting. That sounds very “dictator-like” but let me explain!

During your first floor meeting, you need to put on your big RA pants and basically “lay down the law”. I always tell people that it’s much easier to lighten up than to toughen up. Trust me, I’ve actually gone through both sides! So during the RA meeting, set the rules in a strict tone. Don’t go super mean or hard-ass, but basically tell them that you have a job to do and that the rules are there for a reason and that you won’t hesitate to do what you have to do. 

It’s much much easier to lighten up and be easy going once they respect you and the rules!

Perfect example of what I mentioned a couple posts ago! If you’re not on duty but it is an emergency, of course respond and do what your training dictates! 

It really sounds like you’ve already made up your mind! Which is NOT a bad thing! You are able to recognize that you know you wouldn’t be able to give your residents an experience both you and they deserve, you feel suffocated, and you want to enjoy your senior year. I think you are very wise for evaluating your current state and making a decision that will both benefit you and the future residents. If you aunt has offered you to live with her, by all means, do it! You probably wouldn’t be there that often to begin with anyway. If you do not want to stay with your aunt, consider finding a place with your friends to split the costs.

That is pretty tough! I was also pretty burned out after my second year and I’m gonna be honest, it was super hard to get it back my third year. Not to freak you out, but I probably didn’t get much of it back at all my third year with one exception: door decs. 

The key here is to find the thing you love most about being an RA. For me, it was door decs! I always put everything I had into them because I was quickly realizing that my time as an RA was running out. While there may be times where you just can’t freakin’ wait til you’re done, you have to enjoy it while you can because like college itself, it is temporary! 

Over the summer, be sure to relax as much as possible: take full advantage! You know you’ll be doing it right if you start to feel antsy like you should be getting stuff done! That usually happened to me and by the time it came to return to campus, I was refreshed and ready to go! 

As for mid-year burn out, it can really be hard especially when your courses start to get more rigorous! The one thing you need is a huge SOMETHING! Whether it’s a program, door decs, bulletin board, whatever. Pick something that you have as a responsibility as an RA and just go over the top! I know it sounds like the total opposite of what you would actually want to do when you’re feeling burned out, but pushing yourself to pull off something super incredible can really give you a great, refreshed, “I can do this” feeling when it’s done. For me, it was pulling off my Disney and Frozen door decs. I did those the last two months of my time as an RA and it really left me with a great feeling, like I really knocked it out of the park!

Overall, try to remember that your time as an RA is limited! Whether you decide to ride it out until graduation or just finish one more year until you move on in your college career, take the time to savor it! Looking back, I know there were times when I was ready to just quit, but then I would remember that I only had (x) amount of months left and it really put me back in perspective! 

Of course!! Those were my favorite! 

Ok, so I basically googled a Mickey head to use as a stencil. I laminated it so that it would be more durable for tracing. So I started with a crap-ton of black construction paper and just cranked out 70+ mickey heads. 

Now for the clothing and pieces, I honestly drew it free-hand. The thing that helped the most, was that I used the black mickey heads and traced the bottom of the head on the various colored construction paper I was using for the clothing so that the clothing would fit properly on the head. I was fortunate enough to have almost every color of the rainbow at my disposal so it was easy to get the construction paper I needed. Additionally, it really helps to have a picture of the character you’re trying to do in front of you! I’m DEFINITELY no artist whatsoever! You’d be AMAZED to see how well you can actually draw if you’re doing it with the character in front of you!

For the Disney font, I went to www.dafont.com and downloaded a free Disney font which I then wrote out the names in Microsoft Word using the font. 

I found that glue sticks worked the best for the clothing so that I wouldn’t have any leaking sticky glue issues.

Good Luck! Keep in mind, these took me a solid two to three months to do, so make sure you allow yourself time! They are super worth it though because I had residents going door-to-door guessing what each character was! Have fun! Let me know if you need something else explained!