RA*Chat Ep 57: I was an RA: Community, Connection, and Customer Service

Crystal Lay:
Welcome back to Roompact’s ResEdChat Podcast where we highlight cool people who do cool things and talk about cool stuff in residence life and college student housing. I’m your guest host, Crystal Lay and I use the she/her series pronouns. Today we’re going to be talking to Emma Rash about transferable skills.
Now, I was an RA during my junior and senior year of college, and I had plans to go into my area of study, which was broadcast communications, but then I had a conversation with my friend who was also an RA and it completely changed my career path and I found myself applying to grad school. Every RA does not go on to grad school or does not go on to pursue a career in housing. I am talking to folks who were RAs to find out how they’re using their RA skills in a job that is not housing. I’ll start off by having our guests introduce themselves.

Emma Rash:
Hi everybody. My name is Emma Rash. I am six months post-grad, which is wild, from my senior year of college. I graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the Prescott campus in Prescott, Arizona, which is a tiny town of a bunch of retirement communities and college students. I loved my four years there. I was an RA my sophomore and junior year of college.
Then, my senior year we had some unique circumstances, which we can talk about later, but I ended up taking on a full-time supervisor role my senior year, while also being a full-time student. In May of 2023, I got the opportunity to graduate, woo-hoo, and then walked across the stage and walked into my current job. I serve as a security analyst for a defense contractor here in Arizona.
Essentially, what I do for them is security threat and terrorist analysis on large machinery that the US government builds and creates to protect Americans, both at home and abroad. I love what I do. It is not at all what I thought I would be doing post-grad, but I love that I’m able to use my major, which I guess I should say that too.
I have a major in global security and intelligence studies with a double minor in Arabic and business admin. Definitely in my career field, which my degree lines up with, but I have learned a lot and I’m excited to continue to grow in this career field and probably pop back over to my government law enforcement side, which is where I actually started. I’m really excited to be here and thank you so much, Crystal, for having me.

Crystal Lay:
Wow, I feel really safe all of a sudden. That is wonderful, and congratulations on your recent graduation as well.

Emma Rash:
Thank you so much.

Crystal Lay:
Let’s start Emma, tell us about why did you decide to become an RA?

Emma Rash:
That’s a great question. An RA, a resident assistant, serves a community of college students. I essentially, freshman year, we were sent home March of 2020 for COVID, but we actually went through the application in February, so before COVID was even an idea in our minds. I applied to that process and wanted to be an RA as there is a job aspect, and you can tell in the career I do now. I love helping people and I love leading people.
There’s a huge aspect of being an RA, seeing growth and development, and that is one of my favorite things to see in people, especially young adults. I love working with that excited freshman who just got off the bus. Moms rolling up with the minivan, they’re like, “Oh, I’m so excited for college.” Then, you also have your juniors and seniors who are like, “I’m done. I’ve been here forever. I don’t care anymore.”
Watching them grow and develop and being there as a way to aid and help them was something I really wanted to do. Really, that aspect of I want to help you grow and succeed and watch you walk across the stage four years later, was really important for me. That’s why I applied to be an RA.
Our school did not close down during COVID. We were masked up and popped right back into it in August of 2020. Definitely, a new challenge, but I really wanted to be an RA to help people guide and mentor. That was one of my favorite things, probably why I stayed on as a second year RA as well. Then, I actually got to do a supervisor role my senior year.

Crystal Lay:
Wow. Guiding, helping, leading people. I think there’s some elements in providing a safe and welcoming environment too.

Emma Rash:
Absolutely.

Crystal Lay:
That’s really, I love that you were able to do that and that was your motivation. You mentioned your undergrad major earlier, your majors. Talk more about what those were and then how they led you to your current role.

Emma Rash:
Yeah, absolutely. My undergrad major is in global security and intelligence studies. Its acronym is GSIS or what our school affectionately called GSIS. That confused a lot of people, but essentially how I explain global security and intelligence studies, it is a degree much like homeland security where you are focused on the protection of American citizens and Americans both at home and abroad, but you are allowed to get very specific within that degree program.
I had two tracks or emphasis in my degree program, which was leadership analysis, which actually turned out really helping me in my RA role and then pre-law and law enforcement. For the longest time, I thought I was going to be a lawyer, I was going to law school, my dad was a lawyer and now does other things up there in the Department of Justice. I was like, “That’s what I’m going to do.” I kind of got into my degree program my freshman year, I had a really, really cool opportunity to intern for the FBI.
For the past three years of my undergrad, sophomore through senior year, I actually was working for the FBI part-time, and I got to work on cases that helped people and took people from the worst of the worst moments and got to see them have justice, and love their lives, and transform and help with our victim services team, and kind of take that back and look like, when people are in their worst moments and sometimes those happen at college, I was able to support and provide a service or something else for them. That is kind of what our degree program focuses on.
I also had an emphasis in, so pre-law and law enforcement specifically in terrorism, looking at previous terrorist attacks on the United States, now future terrorist attacks, how has terrorism changed over the past 20 years, and I think a lot of the time, we had professors who were 30-year FBI agents, 25-year CIA professors, super cool people who had this phenomenal experience and just being able to glean that from them as much as possible to take and put into my current role, was really cool.
I took an Arabic minor because all of us were required to have a language. Arabic was mine and then my business minor kind of came out of nowhere. I was taking a leadership analysis, like business management class and absolutely fell in love with it and was able to take a lot of my business corporate skills from that minor and kind of even apply it in my daily skills as an RA, but specifically as an RA supervisor.
That business administration kind of your standard, what do businesses look like? What does the corporate world look like? How are we changing and performing to better serve our customer? The whole thing as an RA, actually it was our housing director’s whole thing is the three Cs, which was care, connections, and customer service. Not only is that how I lived my life as an RA, as an RA supervisor, but it’s still currently how I live my life and how you just start trickling into those transferable skills. That’s my undergrad major and my two minors. It feels weird being post-grad, but it’s exciting.

Crystal Lay:
That is exciting. It sounds like there was a lot of overlap. It almost seems like every day, whether you were in class, you were in the RA role, and also you said the way you live your life seamless. It feels pretty seamless. I do want to transition into the skills because there’s a lot of overlap between everything you were doing.

Crystal Lay:
However, are there specific skills that you think you got or you learned as an RA that you feel like, yes, I’m using this every day in my current role?

Emma Rash:
Yes, absolutely. Honestly, when I was preparing for this podcast, I was like, there’s an endless list, I could go on in forever, but number one, and this was something that was drilled into us as RAs when I started, is customer service. You think about some RAs are like, “What do you mean?” I’m like, “Your residents and their parents actually are your customers and your goal is to make sure and create a home environment for them.”
We kind of talked about that earlier, a place where they feel safe, a place where they feel at home, that they can come to you with anything and everything. That is very true in the corporate world, very, very true. Every day, even as a security analyst, I work with a lot of engineers and those engineers every day are coming to me, “Can I say this? Can I do this in my program? Can I do this in my project?” I’m like, “Yes, absolutely,” or “No, you can’t, but I can provide you with this.”
A lot of that is an RA, right? An RA is being a resource. Well, I’m a security analyst for a defense contractor and I am a resource for hundreds of team members every day. “Can I do this?” “No, but you can’t do this. Here’s another resource.” How do I make sure that our company can succeed and make money, while still serving our customer?
My customer looks a little different. Obviously, the big company as itself has customers, but also an engineer is my customer. My goal is to serve them so that work protected not only as a company but as greater America. You build out and out and out.
One of my bosses recently actually said, “Even the littlest, tiniest things that you do in your job,” I bought flowers for our admin who literally serves our whole program the other day. Her close family member had passed and she’d only met me twice, but those little acts of customer service to make sure the greater team is feeling supported, make sure your success of the team is much wider, right?

Crystal Lay:
Mm-hmm.

Emma Rash:
I really, really, really make an effort to make sure my team feels constantly served and supported. I always told my boss, Justin Munz, housing director of Embry-Riddle, I will give him a shout-out, “I’m a servant leader. I will always serve my residents, serve my RAs first,” because they’re more likely to be able to serve their residents and go out from there and then serve our team overall. Customer service is absolutely number one.
The second one is conflict resolution and conflict deescalation. I always told Justin when I came into this job, “I hated conflict.” There’s a little part of me that still does. I hated conflict. I am a people pleaser by nature and going into a very big, in my opinion, scary big girl, adult, corporate world, people don’t have time for you as a people pleaser. They want what they want and they want it now.
A lot of times residents can be like that. Transferring those skills of like, “You two have a roommate conflict. You want to stay up all night and play video games. You want to go to bed early and study for your tests. How are we sitting down and mediating that so you both can succeed?”
Being a security analyst, the defense contractor, same exact thing. Two people come with a conflict, we’re trying to figure out a resolution, so they both still make money, they both still have a job, and they both still get to succeed at the end of the day. I have loved seeing that transition because as a girlie who is very afraid of conflict, I am now, especially in my RA role, I got a lot of situations that I was like, “I have to do a roommate mediation for these two and I don’t think it’s going to go well.”
You know what? Then, surprisingly coming to a resolution and it was okay and I was like, “I can do this.” Being able to just take those communication and de-conflict skills and move them over and be like, “Yeah, I can do this in the corporate world too,” is a huge one.
Then, the third one, another one I would say, and this was also care and connections, huge as an RA, right? We talk about you are creating a home and safe environment. My favorite story, one of my favorite stories, I have a lot of good stories as RA and as an RA supervisor, is one of my residents.
We’re two weeks in, it’s COVID, so they all came by my door masked up and introduced themselves and one of them was like, “We already have a huge test.” He was an engineer and went to a predominantly STEM school. The kid, off the charts, aced his test. He ran over to my room and was like, “Look at what I did. I aced my test. I got an A.” A little sophomore RA, and I was like, “I’m so proud of you.”
I always had a thing, if they got A on these exams, I’d make them cookies. There are still residents who, to this day, will text me and be like, “Hey, I succeeded on this.” I’m like, “Here’s a $5 Venmo for some cookies.” I did that literally just the last week. There’s such a success in that care connections and they last you forever.
Carbon copy in the corporate world, I am caring and connecting with people, sometimes in a very different way. It’s not necessarily like, “Hey, I am at my worst mentally.” It is, “Hey, I’m really struggling with my job and I need you as a security analyst to better prepare me so I don’t get fired or so I can present this well and not face the consequences.”
Watching those people succeed because you care, because you take the time to connect, because you go the extra mile, makes all the difference in the world. Justin can probably tell you to speak to this a lot, I often probably went too far for my residents, but I loved seeing their success at the end of the day and just seeing them be like, “I can do this.”
I had a very difficult transition from freshmen residents to upperclassmen residents. I love the freshman feel, but when you get up to those upperclassmen residents, you’re like, “We don’t need you.” I’m like, “But I want to be needed.” Working with various different types of people goes back into that connections piece.
I had residents who were like, “I don’t want to leave my room. I don’t want to talk to you.” I was like, “Well, guess what? Every month for five minutes, you have to sit down and tell me what’s going on with your life.” We do that all the time on the corporate side of things. You know what? We sit down with people we’ve never even met. We don’t know their stories, we don’t know their background. We have no idea, but standing down with them, connecting with them, being like, “Here’s a path to help you succeed,” is really, really unique.
I definitely thought my goal is to eventually go back to the FBI and be an agent. They kind of told me like, “Hey, you need to go get your outside work experience.” That’s kind of what I’m doing at my defense contracting work, but I’m so excited to go back because as an intern, even going out to these crime scenes with these agents, you are seeing people at their worst moment.
Sometimes, all they need is care and connections and boom, they’re more willing to talk to you. They’re more willing to communicate with you. They’re more willing to help just because you cared and showed that connection in the first place. That is a lot of times how I try and live my life in general. Like taking that extra step to care and connect, both in corporate, both as an RA, they transferred back and forth all the time.
Sorry, I know that was a lot. I have a lot of transferable skills. I could talk about this all day. I love this, but those are some three big ones and I’m like, “I don’t believe that everyone should be an RA, but I believe that the people who are RAs are significantly better prepared for their lives.
My two best friends from college and actually one of the best friend’s boyfriends, best friends in college was kind of our group. Three of us, actually, all of us were RAs and all of us are succeeding very well and they use their skills every day. One of them works at Disney World on the Rise of the Resistance ride. She uses customer service every day to make sure people have the most magical experience on Earth. I constantly use her as an example.

Crystal Lay:
Wow. It also, what I’m picking up on is it sounds like you also found your voice, you became more confident, and I think you also learned some things about boundaries. What do I need to provide to this other person without also sacrificing myself, because the conversation you had with Justin, where you all talked about, are you overextending, are you giving too much, and at what point is it, yes, this is a good level of satisfaction or humanity for this other person without sacrificing myself?
I love, I love the enthusiasm that you bring to it and just the, I’m wondering, your job sounds intense and being an RA can be intense. As far as like, FBI, crime scenes, helping people, there’s a lot of emotional labor. My question for you, particularly if you could give a tip to current RAs who maybe have a major that’s maybe more intense or going into a more intense career path, how do you care for yourself, if you’re comfortable answering that? How do you create boundaries or distance or wellness as an RA, but then also in your career path?

Emma Rash:
Absolutely. That is a phenomenal question and I’m so glad you asked it because as you probably noticed, when I was a brand new RA my sophomore year, I didn’t set boundaries and it ended up kicking me in the butt repeatedly. We had a phenomenal assistant director of Residence Life who was like, and you hear this phrase all the time res life, “You cannot pour from a cup that is empty.”
When I was an RA supervisor my senior year, I consistently told my RAs that, you cannot pour into your residence if your cup is not full. I, as a supervisor, cannot pour into you if my cup is not full. Honestly, it took a lot of, actually Justin and another one of my best friends who, she was an RA for two years and then became a supervisor with me, looking at me sometimes and being like, “Is that really the next step? Is that really what you should be doing right now?” “Nope.”
As Justin’s walking out of the office, “Go home. Why are you still here?” “Because I want to,” “Nope, nope. The weekend’s over. You’re about to be on call for a week. Okay, go take a little trip. Get off campus.” I traveled with our university a lot with our admissions team to talk about our degree program specifically and housing residence life.
One of the biggest things with that was people are like, “How do you take care of yourself? Embry-Riddle is such an intense school,” but this goes for all majors. As a student, you are like academics, RAs, residents can pop up at any time and you are absolutely right. My job right now, I feel like I’m always on. As an RA, you can feel like you are always on, because at any moment you could get a phone call, you could get a duty phone call, you could have a resident knock on your door and it could be a crisis.
How do you balance this? “I’m going to take a night to myself,” “I’m getting a call from a resident right now.” I used to be an RA that answered no matter what, and I was like, “I’m the best RA because I do this,” not true. As RAs, you have to set that boundary with your residents and I definitely am not the best at doing this.
It was a huge learning curve for me, especially as a supervisor because I’m a helper. I want to be there to support you whenever you need it, but when you have 44 residents, there’s always going to be a crisis. That is why housing residents life is set up so that you are not always on-call because guess what? Your residents shouldn’t be calling you. They should call someone else.
I’ll never forget I was on a work trip with the university and one of my residents, massive crisis, and I was massive mental health crisis. I was not able to be there for them. I came back and I was physically upset. I was like, “Why am I not there? I’m not doing good enough.” No, you are good enough. You are a good RA. There are other people for that. You cannot always be on. Yes, even right now, I feel like in my job, I’m like, I have to help everyone right away.
Also, I think, what people don’t realize is when you’re always on like that and you’re not taking care of yourself, you will mess up and you’re going to mess up anyways, but you will definitely mess up if you’re pulled in a thousand directions and you’re not taking care of yourself.
Phenomenal example of this, I am three months into my job. It is more demanding than I ever thought it would be, and I stopped working out for the first two months because, and working out is a huge stress relief for me. I’m a runner. I’m a hiker. I like to be outdoors. Two months in and I was feeling like crap. I was making all these errors at work. I wasn’t doing well. I was like, “You know what? Let’s kick back in my workout routine.” I’m like, “But I’m so exhausted. I don’t have time.”
I started going back to my spin classes, hiking on weekends, going out with friends, which is kind of how I refill. All of a sudden, I’m getting awards at work, three months in and I’m succeeding and all these things. It’s not to say you do this one thing and your life is perfect, right? That is not at all it, but something I consistently communicated with my RAs is I was like, “If you are not doing well, guess what? We have a whole other team of 40 of us to come behind you and support you.”
I will brag on my team of 10 RAs because I can for a second. Those 10 RAs had each other’s backs like nobody’s business. I felt that because as a supervisor, I enforced that. I was like, “You know what guys? We are not leaving each other out to drive. We are not leaving each other hanging.” If I have to hold the RA duty bag as a supervisor for two hours, that’s what I’m going to do.
That transfers to, “You know what, I’m going to have to stay after two hours late at work, so this gets done, great. I’m going to take the morning off.” Making sure you find that balance in order so that you can succeed and feel fulfilled to serve your people. I know I’m not being fulfilled and this little tip and trick for you RAs, if you are ever at the point in your job where you find every single thing your residents contact you for, they’re annoying or they’re a problem.
Halfway through my junior year, I’m working with upperclassmen residents at this time, I was like, everyone is annoying. They’re awful. They don’t know what they’re doing. What am I doing? I’m like, “This is a check for Emma. I need to come back. Why do I do this job? Why do I serve these people? How do I reset?” Honestly, taking a week away from residents being like, “Hey guys, I’m not going to be available. Sorry.” Sticking to that.
That was the hardest part for me was sticking to that but my God, I felt so much more refreshed and able to come back and serve people when I’m fulfilled and making sure you take that time, whatever that looks like for you. As an RA and as a student, is it taking a walk outside once a day? Me and my roommate, who was my supervisor with me, my co-supervisor, we called them hot girl walks, “When are you taking time to get outside?” “Oh my gosh, it’s snowing.” “Snowing. No, let’s go make snow angels.”
Getting outside is my big thing, but whatever your thing is, if it’s reading a book, if it’s going to see family, if it’s going out with friends, if it’s taking a walk around campus, make sure that you are fulfilled because I promise you, in this RA job, it can feel like we are always on. People, I think sometimes the biggest complaint I hear from other RAs is I never get to be a student.
We remind RAs when they start this job, “You are always being extra watched,” but I do tell my RAs, I’m like, “You may always be being watched on this campus because you are an example. You are a leader, but remember that sometimes it’s okay to leave campus, get away, step back, go out to another city, go home, whatever that looks like for you to make sure you’re fulfilled and it doesn’t feel like every second of the day you’re talking to your residents.”
Hopefully, that answers your question, but that would be my biggest tip and trick is the moment you start feeling like everyone has a problem, everything is an issue, you need to come back and center and be like, “What do I need to do so that I feel fulfilled in this role?”

Crystal Lay:
There were so many, golden nuggets, wisdom in there. I was like, you need, just write a book.

Emma Rash:
I have thought about it. I actually, I really have thought about this. My parents were like, “You should write a book about all your RA stories and everything,” and it was going to be called, The Shit Your Kids Don’t Tell You About, written by a college RA. I was going to have all these tips and tricks in it and funny stories from my time as an RA, but we’ll see if I ever write it. I’ll let you know if I do.

Crystal Lay:
Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I like the piece about how do you check in with yourself, what are the things that your body, your mind is telling you to say, “Oh, it’s annoying. Everything is awful.” Is that your way you check in or you’re like, “I’m not doing my typical usual routines and it’s impacting me mentally, physiologically,” how do you know your body and yourself well enough to give you cues on what you need to adjust?

Emma Rash:
Absolutely.

Crystal Lay:
I also think about for folks who have been on an airplane, they will say, “You put your mask on first,” and that can be a little unsettling if you have another human you’re trying to care for, maybe you’re next to a small child, but I always think about if that little person is depending on you and they need you to be strong and well, so you can help them. It can’t be the other way around.

Emma Rash:
I actually love that analogy. I’ve never heard that, but I am going to use that. I’m going to steal that little nugget from you, Crystal. I’ve never heard that analogy, but I love it.

Crystal Lay:
That’s what you talked about, right? If you are well, if your cup is full, whatever is the excess, that’s what you’re giving out to other humans. How are you continuing to listen to your body, knowing yourself well enough and then asking for what you need. I think that was amazing.
I think also being in the leadership role, you said folks are watching you. They are. I think they’re watching how you set boundaries, how do you react to things, and it’s not to put more pressure like, ‘Gosh, folks are watching me,” it’s just knowing that you’re a leader and people are looking to you for an example and it comes with the role.

Emma Rash:
Absolutely. A little nugget on that, I actually, a great point to that, I, as a sophomore, I always have to be perfect for my residents. My residents cannot ever see me in tears. They can’t ever see me upset. They can’t ever see me having a bad day.
Then, I realized four months in, that’s garbage. I’m sitting there telling these residents and telling my coworkers that we are a team, we work together. I’m going to have bad days. You’re going to have bad days. I completely kind of transferred that when I became a second year RA. I was like, “Look guys, I’m not perfect all the time and I’m going to have bad days. You see me in tears, it’s probably not a good day. I’m not a big crier. It doesn’t happen very often.” I really love that point of you, as an RA, cannot be perfect. That is an unrealistic expectation.
Show your residents that. Leaders are not perfect, but leaders are real. Your residents need to realize that you’re not just this fake God who floats up in the air, who does everything right. Guess what? I’m a firm believer that every RA probably had a policy violation before they became an RA. You are not perfect. What you advertise to your residents is your business, but I try and be as honest as possible with my resident. “How are you doing? You know what guys? This week is garbage. It sucks.”

Crystal Lay:
Then, it’s the things are hard and I’m going to use this resource, right?

Emma Rash:
Exactly.

Crystal Lay:
Naming that and it’s okay. I remember when I was a live-in staff member, as a professional member and some of my students saw me at the grocery store and they were amazed I was buying groceries. I’m like, “Yes, I eat food and I actually leave campus to buy groceries.” “Yes, I go to the doctor,” but I think it’s those day-to-day things that we can do that are just normal and a part of our routine that shows folks that we do try as best as we can to have a good sense of wellness or integration, work-life integration is what I like to call it.

Emma Rash:
Absolutely.

Crystal Lay:
My last question for you, maybe second to last, we’ll see, your classes and your role lined up so well. My question for you is, for RAs who are saying, “You know what, I’m glad that worked out for you, Emma, but I am majoring in English literature.” What are some ways or some things that they could still pull from to try to create a connection between their classes and the RA role?

Emma Rash:
Absolutely. Another great question. You’re so good at this. That’s a phenomenal question. To give some context before I give my full official answer, I went to a very small STEM school of 3,000 students and the idea behind this is you go to the school, you’re paying tons of money for private education, you better know what you’re doing.
One of the biggest things I found with residents is these residents were in mental crisis because they got an F on a paper. That means, they can now not be the brand new F16 pilot, which has been their dream and goal as a kid, which is great. I’m glad that’s your dream and goal, but them hitting this point of, “I failed one class, I’m going to fail everything. I don’t belong here. This is not my degree program,” or second to that, them having the breakdown of, “I hate engineering, I hate it here, I don’t like this.”
I mean, two of my best friends both RAs, one went into housing. She was a psych minor, found out she loved psych more than she did [inaudible 00:30:22], fine and she succeeds in housing. I learned so much from her being her best friend as an RA and as a supervisor. I took so many of her things and reused them.
Then, my other best friend, RA for a year, went off to work at a coffee shop, now works at Disney World, not at all using her global security and intelligence studies degree, but every day, she took what she needed from her classes. This is where I’m going to kind of pull in that class piece, every day in classes, it’s not just about your course content, it’s about what classes provide to students.
Classes provide connection, classes provide the opportunity to network, to organize, to time manage. Guess what? There are probably a lot of those classes. I’m going to be honest with you, I’m not necessarily prepared to write an intelligence brief like I did two years ago, but let me tell you, I will always and forever remember the time management that that class taught me. It teach me how to study better.
I mean, I’m preparing now, when I study for tests and exams within my job, I am like, “I’m pulling on these study habits from forever ago.” I’m a firm believer that just a degree is a degree. How you use it is up to you. I brought that to a lot of my residents and it can be a spicy opinion every once in a while.
My little brother is an engineer and people are like, “Well, what if he doesn’t use his engineering degree? That was a waste of money.” Absolutely not. You can go and do something else phenomenally cool with that degree. Perfect example, shout out to my mom and she listens to this, my mom majored in something she was passionate about.
My mom is a Latin American studies major. Let me tell you, everybody, when she graduated from undergrad was like, “What the hell are you going to do with that?” Guess what? My mom went to medical school and she’s been a family practice doc for almost 30 years. You have a degree. How do you use it? What you pull from those classes and those learning opportunity, entirely up to you.
Now, I will say that with this caveat, what you put into it is what you get out of it. I have watched students who became RAs, really didn’t put much into the job and will forever and ever hate housing and residence life.
Let me tell you, if I got fired today, I would jump back into housing and residence life because the opportunities and networking and skills that you learn as an RA, that you learn being a student and an RA, most specifically what you’re learning in those classes, what you’re pulling in and how they meet together, with whatever you’re going to do over here, whatever you’re going to do when you walk across the stage, is absolutely okay and you’ll learn so much.
I think there’s so much more than just the class content you were on, right? There’s all these memes on the internet. You’re paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a college education. What is worth it? Well, you know what? If you’re not really that interested in your classes, switch degree programs or you know what? Just take from those classes the other skills that they teach you.
Great example, one of my best friends, she did not go to [inaudible 00:33:25], she actually goes to NAU, shout out to my girly, speech pathology major is going to grad school at NAU doing speech pathology. She has taken some of those phenomenal skills. She can be a phenomenal speech language pathologist, but what you do over here, does not necessarily have to be what you do here, but what you put into over here, and I guess this will be a little bit difficult on the podcast, but what you put into box A is what will transfer and you’ll get out of in box B.
I’m a firm believer that the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. I will say this, the things you get out, may not always be good. I always tell people that sometimes there’s trauma with being an RA, sitting down with a resident and they’re telling you a story and you’re like, “I’m resonating a little bit too closely with this.” How do you process that trauma over here and now you’re able to help someone in box B because of this kind of ugly stuff that you went through in box A.
Hopefully, that makes some sense, but absolutely, the stuff you glean from your classes from being an RA, you don’t necessarily have to take exactly that and go and be this. There’s a thousand different shootouts. I think people think I’m a very determined person, which I am, and I was like, “I’m going to work for the FBI. I know it.” This is what I’m not doing.
Working for the FBI and four job offers when I left college, to work in housing residence life, to work in our admissions department, which I have a special place in my heart for admissions, to work at my defense contract or to work for the FBI and turning down a dream job because it’s not what fit me in this moment. That’s okay.
I want every college student RA, otherwise, to hear that. It is okay to not have a plan, to have your plan change, or to completely go some other way than someone else was thinking. There’s a thousand different paths and how you pick them, is up to you.

Crystal Lay:
I feel I’m getting emotional. I feel so motivated and I think our college students need someone to say, “It’s okay.”

Emma Rash:
Yes.

Crystal Lay:
It’s okay. Thank you for sharing that. We’re coming to the end of our time, Emma. If folks wanted to learn more about whether it be your career path or the transferable skills that you shared, is there a particular book, podcast, website resource that you would refer them to?

Emma Rash:
Oh gosh, that’s such a great question. I am a reader. A book that I am reading right now and it is boxed away. I just moved into my new apartment, so excuse the mess, but it is called Atomic Habits. It is sold at Target. I bought it in a very hopeful, “I’m going to be a better person.” Then, one night I was like, “I should just sit down and read a couple chapters.”
Well, 20 chapters later, it very much teaches you about habits and bad habits that you want to break, habits you want to change. There were a lot of things in college and habits I did in college that really didn’t serve me once I stepped out of college. I was like, “Well, how do I transfer those? How do I make them better?” This book kind of helped me with that. Forever, Atomic Habits.
I said this in an interview I did with my university, like an exit interview about being an RA and my time at the university as an RA and as an RA supervisor, always listen to your RA and your housing staff. They’re geniuses. I’m going to plug all my housing staff right now. If you work in Housing Residence Life, you’re amazing. They usually have very wise advice.
Usually, where I’ve gotten a lot of the advice and motivation and how I’ve lived my life and my opinions, are from the people who I surround myself with. Justin Munz. I love him. Yes. I learned so much about housing and residence life because I think often, I would walk into his office and I’m like, “Justin, you will not believe this. That happens all the time. How are we going to work through that?” I was like, ‘Well, that’s not the response I was expecting, but okay.”
Looking to leaders in your life, how they lead their life, how they walk into situations, forever, I will change because of my best friend Cam. She’s the one who works in housing now. Shout out to her, love her. How I answer questions to people, people who are like, “Hey, this happened.”
Instead of responding very aggressively, “Why did you do that? What the heck happened?” Walking into a party full of residents going, “Explain to me what was going on here. Help me to understand. Walk me through.” Getting on that level with people and understanding, but I glean so much from the people I surround myself with and make sure you surround yourself with good people, but definitely, turn, ask those leaders, ask those big questions.
I learned a lot being a female leader in a very big role from the agents that I worked with at the FBI. They are in a predominantly man male role and they go in and they’re their own people and they kick and they do really cool things and I’m like, “I want to be you.” They have really good advice, fun fact about being a female or being what you identify as in a general space.
So yeah, people you surround yourself with, Atomic Habits. What was another, I read a lot of books about high functioning anxiety, which is kind of where I fit into the thing, but figure out what your clutches are, what you lean on, and how you can develop and create those to serve you and filter those to make sure you can be the best you can be. Is it a constant working process? Yes. Is it often frustrating and really demanding? Also, yes.
By no means, try and portray that my life is perfect, but yes, I’m doing a job I absolutely love. No, it is a challenge, each and every day and each and every day we experience stuff that’s like, “This sucks. This is great.” How you work through those, the habits, how you adapt, whether it’s therapy, whether it’s being outside, whatever it is, and how you transfer that to how you live your life is really important.

Crystal Lay:
Everything you share, I feel like you’ve been really vulnerable. Share some really beautiful pieces, some great resources. I’m so grateful for the time that we’ve had together. Then, the Atomic Habits piece that you shared, we’re going to add those to the show notes.
I also have something from [inaudible 00:39:53] that talks about transferable skills and it almost perfectly matches a lot of the things that you talked about. I’m also going to add that list to the show notes. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see that there’s a lot of cool things that we’re saying as a field we believe you should have. Then, to hear you saying them out loud is really, really neat. Thank you so, so much Emma, for joining me today.

Emma Rash:
Thank you so much for having me. This has been phenomenal. I miss how, there’s still part of my heart that misses housing residence life. Thank you so much for having me. This has been so fun. Best of luck to all of you out there who are graduating from college and moving on.

Crystal Lay:
Yes. Thank you all, definitely our listeners, for joining us on this episode of ResEd Chat. If you have an idea of a topic or a person you’ll like us to have on the show, please let us know by reaching out to Roompact and take care.