RA gets stood up by residents
I finished my second week of classes and I am enjoying every single one of them. Professors are nice, students are friendly and classwork is not too overwhelming. But following the final few days of my week, I was on duty as an RA for the first time.
I was extremely nervous, but had other RAs to support me. As an RA, you are on “duty” at least once a week. You are required to sit at the front desk and do “walks” around the building to enforce rules, such as quiet hours. Depending on the building, depends on your “walk schedule.” In Offenhauer, we do a 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. walks on the weekdays. On weekends, a 9, midnight and 2 a.m. walk. You are never on duty alone so you get to handle situations with other RAs. Since I am a midyear hire, I couldn’t be more thankful for this because I didn’t really know what I was doing.
Most of the nights were relatively calm. I cannot give out any details about the situations because of confidentiality rules. All I know is there were some interesting events. I even received a call at in the middle of the night to deal with a situation. Now the question is, “Is doing all this duty stuff and weekly meetings really worth the free room and board?” I 100 percent agree! You save a lot of money by being an RA, and the best part is you get to build connections with residents on each floor. Since I like to talk and meet new people, this job was meant for me.
On Sunday, I had my first floor program. Each RA is responsible for doing two floor programs a month. Essentially, they are “hangout” sessions to which you get to know other people on the floor. For my first program, I wanted people to come to the BGSU Women’s Basketball game. Free admittance and only $1 for hotdogs, popcorn and pop. Well worth it. Unfortunately, not a single person from my floor showed up. This made me very sad. Now, I have to plan two more floor meetings by the time January ends because I didn’t have a good attendance.
As a word of advice to incoming and current students, get to know your RA. Your RA is not only a great resource if you have any questions, but also a great friend to have. Secondly, please attend the floor programs. RAs work hard putting these programs on, and to have no one attend really sucks. It’s only two times a month. Even if you can only go for 30 minutes, it is still nice to help out your RA.
I hope my next floor programs go better than planned.
Until next time BG,
Mike