Nobody’s getting screwed over. If residents would follow the rules, they would be just fine.</p>
<p>I work as a residential director at a university; I supervise 5 buildings and the 10 RAs that work in them. I love working with my RAs. The first thing I have to say is please don’t become an RA just to save on room and board; you will likely be unhappy, because the job requires a lot of time and commitment. We’ve had RAs slip through or stay on even though they didn’t like the job because they wanted the housing and board, and they were miserable. But if you want to do the job because you really want to work to build a community and make the residence life experience great for your residents, and R&B is a perk, then go ahead and apply.</p>
<p>The application process and how difficult it is to become an RA varies from school to school. I know at NYU, for example, the selection is ridiculous because room and board is so expensive there, whereas at my university, it’s competitive but not ridiculous. And who can be selected varies by campus. At my university, sophomores, juniors, and seniors can be RAs. At some campuses, only juniors and seniors can serve. I’ve never heard of a campus where only seniors can be RAs.</p>
<p>RAs are not on-call 24/7. They have a duty rotation. How often you are on duty depends on your university. When I was an RA in undergrad, the rotation was within building and there were 6 of us, so I was on duty 5-6 times a month. Here, there are 2 RAs on for my entire area, so our 30 RAs are only on duty about that many times per semester. You will have to deal with a lot of serious situations though. My RAs have helped students with serious mental illnesses, have helped students who were thinking about killing themselves, and have intervened in raging parties and medical issues. I’ve seen RAs sit in the hospital with their residents at night (although that’s not required here) just because they cared. And of course, RAs have to plan a certain amount of programs.</p>
<p>Here’s what we look for when selecting RAs:</p>
<p>-Evidence of maturity. There are a lot of ways you can exhibit this - one successful RA wrote about supervising his younger siblings.
-Responsibility. There are a lot of administrative duties to fulfill as an RA - turning forms in on time, handling money, negotiating with vendors, taking care of instructions, etc.
-Leadership experience. We consider our RAs to be leaders. If you’re on the executive committee of clubs (either in high school or college), that’s a good thing.
-Participation in your res hall community. If you apply to be an RA and your RA has never seen you at any programs he or she has put on, that’s a problem. At my school your RA has to write you a recommendation letter in order for you to apply to be an RA, and at most schools even if your RA doesn’t have to write you a letter, they will probably be asked about you. Make sure you go to all mandatory floor meetings and visit at least a few of your RA’s events.
-As noted above, the ability to take your friends to task if they do something wrong. Especially people who are placed in a hall with their friends (e.g., seniors with seniors). You have to treat everyone fairly.
-Get to know your RA. Quite a few of my hires this year were because my RAs told me “This person is awesome.” Ask if you can help plan an event. You will get serious brownie points for that!