In this week’s episode, guest host Dustin Ramsdell spoke with Madison Vasich, a current Roompact blogger from the University of Montana to get her reflections and advice on starting as a new professional staff member straight from completing her undergraduate degree. Madison also shares her experience moving to a new area for your first professional job and how best to acclimate to a campus environment.
Guest: Madison Vasich (she/her), Community Director, University of Montana
Host: Dustin Ramsdell, Independent Higher EdTech Content Creator
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Transcript:
Dustin Ramsdell:
Welcome back everyone to Roompact’s Res Ed Chat podcast. If you’re new to the show, every episode, our team of hosts brings you timely discussions on a variety of topics of interest to higher professionals who work in and with University of Housing, Residence Life, Residential Education. And this is another in our series of episodes that we love to do every year where we highlight our blogging team here. We bring in a diverse network of folks from all across the country to share their perspectives on the work happening at their campuses and just in the space at large. So we’re continuing that here with Madison. If you want to kick us off, give a brief introduction of yourself and an overview of your background, and then we’ll get into more about what brought you to the team.
And the topic of today being interesting about transitioning. We talk a lot about career stuff on here, but I think this will be the first time we’re really getting into going from student staff to pro staff. But I think these episodes will be remaining bloggers, interesting career commentary and reflections and stuff. So appreciate you being open to all this, but kick us off with brief introduction and an overview of your background of what brought you to be where you are today.
Madison Vasich:
Great to meet you and talk to you. I just recently graduated with my bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois Springfield this past May. I studied English and I have a minor in music as well. I was an RA starting my sophomore year, so I had three years of experience in a student staff position. About half of that time was in a more elevated position. So I was supervising other student staff members for about half of that time because my department underwent restructuring while I was there.
And then my last year as an RA in my last year in college, I kind of decided that I didn’t really know what I wanted to do career-wise. And I liked working in Residence Life. So I decided that it might be a good idea for me to continue working in Residence Life in a pro staff position. And I started applying back in the spring of my senior year for positions. And I think I did about 30 interviews over four months. And I ended up receiving an offer from the University of Montana where I’m currently at now.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah, very good. And I think like I said, some of the interviews that we have coming up, generally there’s some commentary on career transitions and things like that, which we’ve covered a lot on the show, but I think there is so many different versions of either we’ll have one coming up on making lateral moves at an institution. And this one, I think just a really great opportunity on that reflections of going from a student staff member to a pro staff and just really acknowledging that it is obviously a big shift and certainly when you’re still close in age or whatever else. So appreciate your willingness to jump in with this again. But before we get too far, always like to hear what inspired everybody to join the blogging team. We’re talking, just to put us in time and space, October 2025. So kind of in the latter stages of your time over this calendar year, writing for Roompact. But if you could just think back, what inspired you to want to join the Roompact blogging team?
Madison Vasich:
My undergraduate university used Roompact the entire time I worked there. So I was familiar with the software end of things and using it as a student staff member. And so back in February or March, I can’t remember when exactly, I saw the call for bloggers. I’m an English major, so writing jobs are also something that I was looking at at the time. And when I saw it, I thought it was really interesting because it’s an intersection of both my degree and the field that I have the most work experience in. And so that’s what got me intrigued initially. And then I wrote my sample article that day that I sent off for them to see if they would be interested in having me brought in as a part of the blogging team and they ended up accepting me. And it’s been really great. I really like working with everyone. It’s not a super high commitment position, but it’s really fun to kind of think about Residence Life in a more abstract way than you typically do in your day-to-day work life.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah. I didn’t have eyes on the process this time around super intensely. So I don’t recall, I guess though, that they, I think we’re explicitly wanting to bring people in super fresh on student staff or kind of recently student staff members and everything. But Roompact’s been doing it for a while. And I think it is an idea of like, you could end up just getting a lot of the same sort of voices of similar institution types or career stage journeys where they feel sort of like, “Yeah, I’ve got something to say. I’ve been doing this for a while or whatever else.” But I think it’s great to elaborate it here in this podcast episode, we get people who are sort of just recently jumping in on the front lines as a professional staff member and talking about the transitions or just a fresh perspective on the work and everything.
And yeah, I think a lot of folks shared in their own ways similar sentiments around, I think it’s just a neat muscle to just keep active certainly from perhaps being a student. And it’s been a while since you’ve been doing writing regularly or we’ve had folks that are like, “Yeah, I’m currently in a PhD program. I need to keep this muscle pretty loose like writing on the regular and everything.” But I think it does help you to connect dots, put ideas together, be able to communicate in a way. And so certainly from what I’m kind of gathering from you, it was like, well, yeah, I was an English major. It’s something I enjoy or just know a lot about and whatever else. And now it fuses these things together and parlay these skills into being kind of service professionally.
And I think too, it is that even just with what you’re doing now to kind of segue back into your career journey, but the idea of, again, something shared by many others graduating, not sure exactly what you want to do and it’s like you could do a lot worse than being a residence hall director. It’s a great sort of incubator and generalist position. You’ll do a lot of things and hopefully just be a sponge and soak up as much as you can.
So we’ll kind of go somewhat chronologically here, but you make the decision, you’re interviewing, you get the job off here, you’re starting. What are some reflections on that kind of immediate transition? And I guess, I mean, you’re in a new place, a new institution, new people and all that, and we’ll talk a bit more about that, the environment piece. But I think that idea of reflecting on the transition of going from a pro staff after being recently a student staff member, just any anecdotes or things, feelings that kind of come to mind at the beginning of that journey when you kind of flip that page, new chapter, what was that transition like?
Madison Vasich:
So I kind of consider my transition having started a little bit earlier than my actual job starting just because I expressed to my supervisors back at my old university that I was interested in doing this, I think like a year and a half ahead of time because I overthink everything. I’m a very type A person and so I need to plan out every route and path that I’m going to take in my life. And so I had talked to them, I think around right after winter break of my junior year and I asked them their thoughts and I wanted to know what their experience had been. And they were super helpful. I had three really great supervisors and they were all very supportive of me going into this field and they thought that I would do really well in it. And they were also very supportive of me taking on additional responsibilities at my old institution.
Between my junior and senior year, I stayed on working for the department full-time and I was basically like the office intern and I was doing different paperwork, documentation, just whatever the department needed at the time because it was a very small department. I went to a very small university. And it really let me see just like the behind the scenes that students don’t typically get to see in their day-to-day college life just because there is that level of separation you need. But also you’re just not in the office very much as a student. You’re in the dorms, you’re like talking with other residents, with other students. So you’re just not seeing the backend very much. And that summer was super helpful. It really gave me that trial run that I felt like I needed to see what actually working in a Residence Life office looks like.
Then my actual transition into this job was, it was very quick. So between my interview and the day I was offered the job, it was like less than three working days, that transition period. So that was really fast. And then I was offered the job in April and then I graduated in May and then I moved out to Montana at the end of June. So a bit slower paced there. Never actually been to Montana before I moved here. So that was interesting for me, but we’ll talk about that part later.
There’s a lot of onboarding you have to do, obviously. You have to get your background check cleared. They sending you a ton of handbooks and just other kinds of job descriptions, all your employee benefits, getting all of that information for the first time was super overwhelming, but they were very helpful with answering all my questions about what I needed to get done, what all the different insurance stuff looked like and how to get all that done. It’s intimidating, but I mean, it’s something everyone has to do after college anyway with your first real adult job. And having that familiarity of working in a college setting has been super helpful in making that transition smoother for me.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah, I appreciate you getting into… I mean, fairly comprehensive covering of everything from just inundating with all this sort of paperwork and insurance stuff and all that where I think there might be a little bit more empathy when they know that they’re maybe recruiting a lot of recent students or whatever. Institutions of higher learning maybe are better at onboarding in that regard than some other organizations might, but it’s like that is an aspect in addition to many other things of the transition that happens. And I think it was so smart and I think it’s good advice. We’ll ask for any other bits at the end here that you might have or like resources, but that idea of taking advantage of the time that you have to get that office experience, because I think that is the blind spot of like, oh, okay, yeah, I’m great in the halls working with students and that sort of thing. And that is an important skill that will continue to be serving folks well, making a transition like you did, but there is just an aspect often of the job that is missing I think for most RAs.
And I think my impression is, again, there’s going to be different flavors in a lot of institutions that maybe have more of that kind of administrative aspect to it. But I think if you take a moment to reflect and if there’s a piece of that that you’re missing or if it’s missing entirely, I think it is really great advice to try to do what you can to ask for those opportunities to shadow or to intern or to do something to get more exposure in that area. So it doesn’t feel like that’s another thing where it’s just like, oh my gosh, yeah, I’ve never worked in a Residence Life office. I’ve never navigated benefits and onboarding paperwork and insurance and whatever.
So yeah, I think those are all good reflections and just all the emotions where obviously you’re heading into a new environment, a new institution, new campus, new state and new people and all those sorts of things. And I think there’s those administrative pieces and making sure you get all the boxes checked and everything. But I think just a feeling of like, okay, I feel at home here, I feel like I have a community or whatever else, I feel supported. I think that’s just how you land in an environment like this, making a transition from being a recent student staff member to a professional staff member matters a lot. So just your kind of perspective and point of view, you don’t have to get necessarily into the specifics of what your exact experience was, but just if you kind of want to provide some commentary on some of the ways that you think the environment impacts this kind of transition for people.
Madison Vasich:
Obviously environment is a huge factor. What’s really interesting about working for university is that they are really good about for those entry level positions, like really easing you in because they do it for on campus students already, they kind of have those processes already in place. And so it’s really easy to just kind of throw employees in on it as well, but that also kind of makes it difficult in a weird way as well, because I’m not a student here. I’d like to be in a couple semesters, but I’m not a student here yet. So there’s a lot of resources that are brought up and referenced that I don’t feel like I can access because I’m not a student here and I wasn’t a student here in the past.
So there’s just kind of that weird line sometimes where it feels like I’m trying to figure out like, is this something that I can access? Is this something that other departments want just faculty to go to? I don’t feel like I’ve been fully brought into this space, which is nothing against anyone here. It’s just one of the challenges of becoming a on campus administrative worker that wasn’t a student here as well, because I didn’t get the student introduction. So now I got an introduction, but it’s not to that extent and that level that students receive.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah. And I think that is probably sort of like a pitfall to avoid for institutions or just sort of like something that they might be like, “Oops, yep, we definitely do that too.” So they might be like, “Oh, we don’t do that, but it’s good to be aware of that and to avoid it.” Or they might be like, “Oh my gosh, yeah, we do hire a lot of our own former students.” And we’re like, “Oh yeah, they know where everything is about our culture and that sort of thing.” So I think just on both fronts, kind of a good call out there. And I think just the elephant in the room, certainly I didn’t want to necessarily ask about it explicitly, but it’s coming to mind because I think kind of to your point, what it would just made me think of is that idea of like, I was not a student here and everything.
It’s like, I might look like one, I’m young and whatever, I might be mistaken for one and that sort of thing. So I’m sure you’ve probably had that experience, but I think that’s part of the transition too is like you might just have that kind of aspect of being mistaken for a student, but then the idea of on the day-to-day of your job that the power dynamics or how you interact with the students in the halls or the student staff that you’re supervising and that sort of thing. I think that is just an aspect of this. If you’re coming right from undergrad into a professional staff position or even from undergrad to grad to a position, you’re still pretty close. So just any quick kind of thoughts on that of point of view, advice or anything, just thinking back to your experience with that so far?
Madison Vasich:
So I think I was quite lucky because all of my coworkers and supervisors have been really great about explaining things and talking to us about… Talking to myself and the other new hire that was brought in from out of state about what things look like on campus, how things run, how to do certain things, like the different processes that just vary from campus to campus and institution to institution. But no one’s going to know that you’re having a hard time until you say something. So just you’ve got to just be persistent about communicating like, “Hey, I don’t know how this works or I don’t know what these resources are.” Yes, it was covered briefly, but I don’t know what the programs they do are. I don’t know what it looks like for a student to go into that space. I don’t know who to talk to. I don’t know who the points of contact are. I don’t know how they involve students in this process. Are there student staff members through these different departments that do a lot of the handling of these things?
So just keeping those lines of communication open and being aware of what you don’t know. Otherwise, what you don’t know and what people don’t know you know is just a blank spot. It’s just like kind of this gray area that no one quite knows how to tackle. So getting really good at that communication aspect of like, “Hey, I know there’s this gap here, I’m describing it as best I can.” And then having my coworkers or supervisors kind of make the connection and fill that in for me. And then obviously nothing’s quite as good as hands-on experience, but that’s just going to come with time.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Yeah. And I mean, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but to me there’s also like that aspect of, because I think it’s an idea of like, well, they don’t know what you don’t know or whatever else. It’s a sort of like fake it till you make it kind of thing. It’s like, “Hey, I’m just starting here. This is all new to me and whatever else.” But if you posture and whatever else and go with confidence and know that you are capable and able to figure things out, if you kind of put on a good show, perhaps a student that you’re working with or whatever else, they’re not going to know any different. And kind of undergirding what you’re saying, I think in my mind is that idea of, obviously it’s going to take time for things to flesh out for you to…
Because it could be like, “Well, according to this sheet of paper, the person in this office’s name is Nina and you need to reach out to them or whatever.” And it might be that eventually, be like, “Oh, I’ve met her, she’s great and whatever else.” So there’s obviously just things will kind of evolve and mature and whatever else where it’s just like, I have all the information. Like you said, I got my training. I know that there’s offices that do these things. I can tell you how to reach out to them and whatever else. No, I guess that that’s enough, especially just starting out and that you will kind of have, as time goes on, more shading and dimension to all these things as you have your time there as a professional staff members. I don’t know.
So yeah, it’s even just that comfort with knowing what you don’t know, knowing that you can maybe figure things out and maybe being patient with yourself and then make sure that you just put on a strong face, I guess. Sometimes certain people’s styles is even just acknowledging that when they’re working with a student or something, it’s just being like, “Hey, I’m new here. I’m figuring things out, so I appreciate your patience, whatever.” That’s some people’s styles, some people are going to keep that closer to the vest.
But regardless, again, we’re recording this early in the fall semester, I guess all things considered, and when this releases, they’re going to be a little bit later. But as you’re looking ahead to the rest of the academic year, what are you excited for, things happening on campus or anything else as you’re kind of going on your professional staff journey?
Madison Vasich:
Yeah. So the end of the semester or rather the end of the fall semester is always a pretty fun time on college campuses. There’s typically always a lot going on just with the holidays and ways for people to get involved in different things. There’s typically a lot of volunteer things that happen towards November, so I’m very excited about those. I’ve actually got a major event coming up at the end of October. My institution has each dorm do a major event once each semester that’s targeted at the whole campus and mine is going to be a haunted house, so I’m very excited about that. It should be a lot of fun. And then I’ve got different committee responsibilities that I run with students, so just seeing how those play out for the rest of the semester. And so yeah, there’s a lot of things to be excited about.
And honestly, just getting through this first year, because that first year is like your first year of college again, all over again. You are seeing how the university flows, you’re seeing how everything works, you’re learning where things are, you’re figuring out what the flow of the semester looks like for the institution because here they have like three different weeks of midterms throughout the semester, which I did not know that was a thing. So that’s a new fun fact for me is that their midterms are a lot longer here than I’m used to in the past. So having those de-stressing events more frequently throughout the semester is a lot more beneficial for this student audience, which is cool.
Dustin Ramsdell:
That’s a good point. I think the first year of anything where you see how everything goes the first time and then you can learn and grow from that is definitely a big one. And then exciting that you’re having that haunted house. Maybe that’ll be featured in a future blog post in some regard, so folks can kind of see how that went or your reflections on it. But yeah, it’s exciting to hear about that. I’m just grateful for you, I guess to be willing again to have this conversation and everything. And just to give you the final word here, any other bits of advice or resources that you’d want to share with folks on this topic that we could maybe include in the show notes?
Madison Vasich:
Yeah. So if you’re interested in working in higher ed or continuing to work in housing after you graduate, a really good website to find jobs on is called Higher Ed Jobs. They have a lot of resume materials as well, so they’re super helpful. And throughout the job application process, you can really filter it down to whatever kind of jobs you’re looking for in higher ed. And a lot of universities use that website to post their jobs on. So super beneficial. I pretty much only used that site to apply to jobs. And like I said, I had about 30 interviews over four months, which is not an insignificant amount of interviews. And just talk with your supervisor ahead of time, talk to them about any advice that they have for you. If they can give you additional responsibilities, they probably will, especially if you’ve shown yourself to be a hard worker and you’ve shown yourself to be someone that they can rely on.
Part of what I like about working at university so much is that everything is so flexible. They don’t have super established roles as much as a typical business environment does. And so you can really shape your role to what you want it to be. Finally, I think using student staff interviews to really polish up your actual business interviews is a really great thing to be doing. What I did when I was helping with student staff interviews was I would take the time to figure out what was the department trying to figure out with each question they were asking the interviewees and how could the interviewees best answer those questions? And by doing that, I was then able to apply that knowledge to my actual interviews that I was having with other universities. And I think that definitely helped me out a lot and definitely helped to ease my nerves a lot while I was doing interviews, thinking about it in that more formulaic fashion rather than like a conversation, which kind of puts me on edge because then I’m being evaluated on my conversation skills, which it’s a little scary.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Well, you’re doing great with this conversation and I’m glad this one is not going to be graded or anything like that. But I mean, it’s good advice just generally. I think just anybody can keep honing their approach on how they’re sort of showing up at interviews or navigating job searches and doing it most efficiently and effectively. And I mean, certainly, I’m sure take it for granted. I think I’ve used Higher Ed Jobs since I embarked on my professional staff journey many years ago. And it’s just always been a great tool to set up certain filtered results that’ll automate and send to you as new things get posted and you can be as broad or specific as you want. And yeah, I haven’t really taken advantage of a lot of other resources, but I kind of got on them. I know that they’ve really expanded their suites of tools for folks and it’s been a great kind of stalwart of the higher ed job search for a long time.
But yeah, I think that sort of analytical approach, it is that kind of idea of like you kind of have this rare opportunity in Residence Life, like doing student staff interview… You just get so much exposure to like… You could see maybe like, oh, this is an interesting way to answer that question or whatever else. But even just having this palette of questions and things and like, why are we asking this? What are we looking for? How can someone kind of best achieve that and everything? Because I think as you’re kind of grinding away at 30 interviews and everything, that is quite the gauntlet if you were kind of going through it and just being like, “I feel like I’m so out of my wits. This is awful. I’m just sort of burning myself out on this.” It’s like, no, I’m going in pretty confidently.
And then there’s so many other variables that you can never know about who are they looking for? I don’t know, but I’m just going to be me and answer confidently and honestly and see how they take that. But so I think all good food for thought for folks, whether they are current student staff members thinking about their future or just anybody kind of thinking about what might be next for them. So I appreciate you sharing all that and sharing all that you did and ways to connect with you and your writing for Roompact in the episode description and show notes and everything. So just thank you so much for hanging out.
Madison Vasich:
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
