Resident Assistants vs. Residents

In college campuses everywhere a war is raging between peers that keep the law and those that push it. There are a group of students that are hired by the university to ruin and destroy the social life and fun of their peers in exchange for housing benefits and money. This is what many On-Campus residents who have gotten in trouble from an RA would have you believe, but the job is much different than that. Every University has different requirements and specifications for their RAs and put a different level of emphasis on different job activities. Some schools focus more on policy enforcement, others place more emphasis on programing or even community building, and others more on being a resource.

I am an RA for the University of North Carolina Wilmington in the University Apartments area, picture of my area above. I am over 64 residents and 2 buildings. At UNCW, RAs go through extensive training to be a resource and deal with the different issues that may arise on a college campus. They put an emphasis on being a community builder and resource for residents on our areas. We are there to help get them connected and become part of the college community. We put on programs for out residents within our own buildings or within the area. A second function of our job is policy enforcement and the democratic/paperwork side of our job. The reason for writing residents up is to build a safer, better community. It takes a lot for most RAs to write up a resident (partly due to the amount of work it takes). A minor alcohol write up can take 30min to an hour with the residents documenting the situation, then up to another hour after that writing up a report of what happened and submitting paperwork to the judicial system. This is why there are few RAs that are pen happy when it comes to write-ups. 

I work on a Staff of 12 RAs, an ARC (who is a Grad Student) and an RC. We work together to program, deal with situations and support our residents. We help each other out and work as a team. Each staff on campus is a different size depending on the number of residents and the area style. A picture of my staff is below.

As I said, job responsibilities at different universities vary. Here is a description of an RA position at UNCW vs. a description of the position at UF. It is different due to the size. If you like helping out others and being a resource, the RA position is good for you. If you don't wanna be an RA, just respect your RA.

Good Tip: being friends with your RA reduces the likelihood of getting in trouble.