Good advice. She will find out sometime in October whether she even gets an interview, so we can go from there. I have a lot of things I’d want her to ask if she moves forward.
Being an RA is an excellent discussion-starter during interviews for post-grad jobs. It allows the candidate to use it as a jumping-off point to discuss influencing skills, ability to manage conflict in a non-authoritarian way (i.e. it’s not mom saying “because I said so” but a more nuanced way of resolution), time management skills, building esprit de corps, creating consensus.
There are lots of on-campus jobs that will provide some of these experiences, but many of them are heavily supervised (i.e. if you’re working in the dining hall, you may get experience managing conflict, but your boss is usually working the shift with you). RA is somewhat unique because it is un-supervised, lots of responsibility, and teaches so many of these soft skills which are so critical in the early years of a career.
Not for everyone- and in fact, if a kid has trouble with time management, I think being an RA is a recipe for disaster (there is always a knock on the door when you least expect it) but it makes for a great interview regardless of the career path!
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To address this concern, you’re a parent and you didn’t freak out, right? Lol.
I used to be a purser for a major airline. I am amazed to think now how calm and collected I could be when there were issues on board. We had medical emergencies, severe turbulence, unruly passengers, and even a pilot lighting a match in the toilet to, um, cover up his business (yes, that really happened and the bathroom smoke detector went off.) People trying to join the Mile High club were always fun to deal with. Running out of meal choices and and sweetly offering the only available option taught me excellent diplomacy skills. Fun times!
I learned so much from that job: how to handle large groups of people, how to delegate, how to communicate with authorities (pilots) and passengers, how to keep calm in both alarming situations and annoying ones, and on and on. There was so much more to the job than just serving food and opening the emergency exit. The same will be true for an RA.
Anyway, I think there are a lot of pros to being an RA and not too many cons. Not enough to make it not worth doing. She’s an adult and should do it if she wants to.
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My DS1 was an RA. We were a bit surprised that he wanted the position. He enjoyed it and it definitely was a talking point for his interviews. One of the interviewers was himself an RA, and my son said it helped him get that offer! A lot depends on how much stuff they put on the RA’s plate. My son had a floor in an upperclassmen dorm in a mid-size engineering school, relatively mundane, and did not feel stressed out. He was a CS major, and so it was definitely helpful in helping his resume for soft skills. That said, I would not recommend this job to anyone who doesn’t have the temperament for it and wants to do it just for a room or a resume. I would also find out about the university’s expectations of an RA.
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That’s so funny. I have some old resumes of mine. I didn’t even list being an RA on my resumes…so I clear,y never discussed it at any interviews. But maybe I should have.
I was an RA my junior year in college, and had an off campus job senior year. That off campus job was what I listed…and it was interesting and did get some questions asked at my first job interviews.
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