I'm going to be an RA!!!!!!!!
 

woohoo! any tips from former RAs?

Follow the golden rule:

If you didn't hear it, smell it or see it, it never happen. That's what I would tell my floor.

I would tell my floor:

I'm not your enemy. I don't care what you do behind your door. If I don't see it, smell it, hear it or smell it, it never happen. Don't make look bad and I don't make you look bad.

I have a bunch of friends who have been or are RAs. It can be a tough job because the age divisions between you and them aren't as obvious as they are when you're younger -- so you want to be friends with them, but there are times when you have be their babysitter, too. It gets hard to figure out what kind of relationship is most productive.

From my experience, there are two types of successful RAs:

1) The ones who regard it as a job only, are friendly with the kids on their floor but not friends with them, keep their personal life separate from RA-ing, and
2) Those who manage to be friendly with their residents but still maintain a balance between that and their job. This one is harder to do than the first, but probably more fun.

do they spend lots of time at staff meetings?

Yes, they spend way too much time at staff meetings when they could be making out with me. ;)

I was an RA for a couple years . . . needless to say, I was either the best or worst RA ever, but it was definitely one or the other

obviously.

Holy isht, are you kidding me? I can't picture it.

At any rate. I want you to be my RA. I would totally move back into the dorms, just for that.

sure enough duder, jr/sr year I was an RA for freshmen and sophomores - it was great for rush, I bet

they were able to figure out early on which fraternity to stay away from?

Haha...hey, wait a minute...

I don't make my RAs meet a lot. We have one weekly meeting that I promise won't go over an hour. Usually it's about 30 minutes, 'cause I know they don't want to be in a silly meeting.

Best advice? DO NOT ANSWER PARENT PHONE CALLS.

Jaysis! :eek: That's a lot of time spent meeting every week.

I'm a Graduate Assistant (basically, I'm over the RAs in one building), and they have a week of training at the end of the summer, and a weekend of training when they get back in January. The training is fun in part because it's a really good bonding experience. Then, they have inservice (sort of like continuous training) once a month for like an hour or two.

Back when I was a residential counselor, we met a total of about 2 hours a week.

Absolutely no part of the training will be 'fun' from a weekly standpoint. We did the same sort of thing (4 hours one day a week), and rarely is it even interesting or important to the job.

We had a two-week session before school that was far more useful, and actually held your interest b/c it was mostly team-building.