I am going to go ahead and preemptively start this post off with a small disclaimer/apology: I will try as hard as I possibly can to say all of this with complete sincerity, while also hopefully not sounding too much like the “you need to wear more flair” manager.
During my time as an undergraduate student, I ended up working at around six different jobs both on and off campus, and one of the most valuable lessons I learned was how my role as an RA was the job I held in college was most likely to give back to me exactly what I was willing to put into it.
By this I mean; there are certain on-paper requirements of the role and many RA student staff will successfully complete that minimum threshold of work to maintain employment for the duration they choose to have the role. On the other hand, there are the RAs who take on an active interest and fully embrace the role they have in the campus community beyond those minimum requirements and are able to create an experience that is not just more enriching for their residents, but also for themselves.
As an example, most RA roles contain a requirement to put on programming and events within your community. You can either pursue this with the goal of doing as little work as possible, likely Googling for “easy RA programs” and ensuring you hit the minimum requirement. On the other hand, you can take the time to form relationships with your residents and develop programming with their interests in mind that lean into interesting topics or developing engaging skills. You can even choose to go about it more “selfishly” and pursue your own interests and create programs you will personally enjoy and figure out how you can help to bring your residents in to partake in your own interests. I can say from personal experience that the latter two options will take a bit more time and work, but at the end of the semester you will have enjoyed the work more when it’s engaging to you and the residents, rather than just repeatedly doing what takes the littlest work possible. You can view programming as a requirement of the job that cuts into your free time, or you can view them as opportunities to develop interests and skills alongside other people you live with. Most residential programming models and curriculums give you at least a bit of freedom in determining what you would like to do in your community, which means they can be as engaging or as flat as you choose to make them.
Related to this, the RA role is genuinely a chance to connect with so many more people than you otherwise would, and potentially form lifelong friendships with the people you meet in your hall. This of course doesn’t happen on its own, I think any RA could tell you that you don’t just automatically get friends by having a name tag with two extra letters on your door. When you embrace the role and make an effort to fully engage with your residents outside of required check-ins, you are much more likely to gain real friendships that will last long beyond your college years. The RA job will force you to interact with the people in your hall, but it’s on you to make sure every interaction doesn’t just feel like a job obligation if you’re hoping to really create lasting friendships.
Looking fully beyond college; in addition to the expected benefits of a single room and possibly a meal plan (both major incentives for the typical college student) during your time as an RA, people will often cite examples of other long-term benefits of the job including how it can help you to develop skills valuable in almost any field you may pursue after graduation. Looking at LinkedIn’s Top In-Demand Skills of 2024 I could easily make an argument for how I learned at least six of the listed skills along with the top skill of Adaptability from my time as an RA. Even here at Roompact we’ve previously written about how RA-related skills can transfer to post-graduation job opportunities. Something you don’t always see highlighted in these articles, however, is the fact that you don’t just passively acquire these skills naturally just by holding the title of RA. Being an RA doesn’t immediately make a person more adaptable in their work and better at communication with others, it will just put you into situations where you can choose to develop these skills through the work that you do. To sum up the entire point of what I’m trying to say here; the RA role is merely an opportunity you have to lean in and do good work that will pay off in the long run, not a magical shortcut to immediately becoming a well-rounded and employable graduate. The RA role is a canvas, but you still have to put in the work to make the painting look good.
The long and short of it is that if you’ve taken on the role of RA, whether it’s because you have fully bought into the nature of the work or if it’s just because you needed a bed for the year, it will be more rewarding, enriching, engaging, and valuable as long as you choose to make it so; and I can really say that from my experiences there are a lot of college jobs that will not offer this same promise.
Zachary Wiberg (he/him/his) has been working in the field of higher education ever since he started out as an RA his sophomore year. He received his MS in Strategic Communication from Radford University and currently works as a Housefellow at Carnegie Mellon University. He enjoys exploring Pittsburgh, making movie references that no one else seems to get, and doing pretty much anything else with his wife and various pets.
