For this week’s episode of ResEdChat, guest host Dustin Ramsdell chats with Alexis Karakas about her experience helping her student staff members understand the relevant skills they gain during their time serving the department, no matter what industry they pursue after graduation. Alexis also details her approach to this work, and what makes it so important.
Guest: Alexis Karakas (she/her), Residential Living Coordinator, University of California – Irvine
Host: Dustin Ramsdell, Independent Higher EdTech Content Creator
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Roompact’s ResEdChat podcast is a platform to showcase people doing great work and talk about hot topics in residence life and college student housing. If you have a topic idea for an episode, let us know!
Transcript:
Dustin Ramsdell:
Welcome back, everyone, to Roompact’s ResEdChat 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 hired professionals who work in and with university housing, residence life, residential education, et cetera. And today’s another in our ongoing series of episodes that we like to do every year, inviting in the current blogging team for Roompact to help introduce them to our community and talk a little bit more about some of the topics that they are covering and the content that they’re creating for the Roompact Blog.
Alexis, if you want to kick us off, as we usually do, briefly introduce yourself and your professional background, and then we’ll get in more to our topic of the day which I think will be a really interesting one about helping RAs articulate skills for their career after they graduate.
Alexis Karakas:
My name is Alexis Karakas. I use she/her pronouns, and I’m a residential living coordinator in University of California Irvine’s undergraduate student housing. I’m actually an alum of UCI. I received my bachelor’s in history there. I was a resident advisor for three years there. I received my master’s of education from USC, University of Southern California. And then I came back, and I’m working for them. And then this is my third year as a professional.
Dustin Ramsdell:
Awesome. Well, fellow history undergrad major here. Kindred spirits in that regard. I think obviously a lot of folks come in working as RAs and that sort of thing. And I think it’s always interesting, I guess, just even how things will inform your perspective of being an undergrad at the institution now working at the institution, and you can maybe see yourself in some of the folks that you are working with now.
But before we get too far, obviously, like I said, we’re speaking now in October of this year. You’ve gone through a lot of your tenure as a member of the Roompact blogging team. But if you can think back to what inspired you to want to join the team in the first place and just share that before we get on to that topic of the day.
Alexis Karakas:
I’ve always loved writing. Since I was a very young teenager, I was always writing books and poetry. I thought I would be a writer. I was able to do some research in both my undergraduate and graduate academic careers. And then I found myself in my professional role maybe not flexing those muscles as much as I wanted to. When I first heard about Roompact’s blogging opportunity, it was when Paul from Roompact had come to do a refresh for our institution. And I was like, “That seems right up my alley,” because I am very interested in having that creative outlet. I’m also very passionate about creating trainings, and I see that Roompact has this body of knowledge it’s trying to build with its content. I’ve just been very excited to, and I have been contributing to that.
Dustin Ramsdell:
And I think there is sort of a through line, certainly, of folks who have some awareness or connection to Roompact. Just are a little bit more privy to the opportunities. We’ve had other folks, I think, that just kind of stumble upon it, and it’s a very random thing, and they’re like, “Sure, I’ll just kind of throw my hat in the ring for that.” But I think that the puzzle piece is coming together for a lot of the folks is that idea of enjoying writing and not doing it as much as they used to and wanting to do more or folks in PhD programs wanting to keep those muscles strong because I do think the creative muscles sort of atrophy after a bit. You got to really put that concerted effort into keeping them loose and everything.
But I think it is sort of a great part that I appreciate, certainly being part of the podcast, of that Paul is very intentional about curating all of this content versus it just sort of living buried in a library where it’s like, “It’s well and good. All of it is sort of on-demand and available for anybody who wants it,” but curating it and tying things together for training purposes or whatever else. It’s great that you can contribute on that that way and then just get that kind of personal, professional fulfillment of putting your voice in your writing out there.
Again, for these, we want to give a little bit more of a dynamic, warm opportunity for folks engaging with the topics that the writers have been putting content out about. This one, like I said, helping RAs articulate their skills for any field and industry that they may go into after graduating. If you just want to start super high-level of what your experience has been, helping RAs do that, and then we’ll dig a little bit deeper.
Alexis Karakas:
I remember when I first got this professional role, one thing I noticed is that my classifications title is student development specialist. While my job is to be a residential living coordinator, the development specialist piece was something that really stood out to me. Supervision is a majority of our role in what I do. Taking those opportunities within one-on-one meetings to get to know the students, I started to realize that I was bringing in just organically a lot of anecdotes as an alum. “You’re such and such major? I have a friend who did that, and they did this extracurricular,” or, “They went to this field,” or, “Maybe I can ask them this for you,” or, “Let me connect them to you.”
I started saying, “I’m going to be your holistic advisor. Let’s talk about anything you want, even if it’s outside of your role.” And then by the end of that first year, I was like, “Let me do this spring quarter series.” We’re in quarters here at UCI. Things get a little lighter by the end of the year, and there was less to fill the one-on-one meetings with. And I kind of scaffolded this curriculum just very unofficially for my RAs. In the beginning, we were talking about, what experience do you have creating a resume and interviewing? “Just this? Let’s work on that.”
Or in the second time around, it was more, “Let’s just write down what you want to apply to and what you’ve been doing in this role.” And then we continued to synthesize what we were doing here in the RA role and what they planned on doing and then building those connections between how we can articulate that within an interview. And then we talked about and we reflected upon, how have we been using our skills, and how have we been thinking about our role here as an RA this year going into whatever field you want to go to? It was kind of this exposition, rising action, and then we were able to have that light-bulb moment with each of these students.
And by the end, we were doing mock interviews. I have an article out on the RACE method. We were able to create an acronym how we can structure our responses and such. It was very interesting to guide them through that for the first time on my end as a supervisor, as a new professional. And then since then, I’ve been able to administer things like personality quizzes, organizational tips and tricks. We’ve talked about mental health. And I always, always try to connect it to not just now, not just this year. How are you going to take that in to your future role as a professional?
Dustin Ramsdell:
There’s a lot of layers to this, and it’s really interesting, and I’m excited that we’ll at least be able to give honorable mention to as many as we can and dig into a few here. I think there’s kind of a spectrum when you’re in a job, whatever that job is, of professional development. The organization might do nothing. They might do very directed efforts where they’re sort of setting the tone and the schedule, or it’s very self-guided from the individual. And sometimes there’s just that idea of we’ll help do training and professional development, but it’s really just help you do your job better right here and now. It’s not really going to be super applicable elsewhere. But then there’s also that mindset of we definitely just want you to grow as a person and as a employee in this field, and it’s going to be very transferable and everything.
But then that idea of certainly the dynamic here, some people as RAs that are very self-aware of, “I love this. I want to do more of it. I’m going to maybe pursue this as a career,” and you’re like, “Well, I’ll help you nurture that and build up your initial kernels and seeds of your professional identity in higher education.” But then most RAs don’t do that. And you’d want them to feel this was time well spent, and being an RA does give you a lot of experiences and skills and things like that. You’d want it to be, certainly with your perspective and, like you said, your title, my title technically has student development and everything in it, so let me try to help direct that to a point but certainly follow this student staff member’s lead as to what they aspire to do. How can we get them more of what they feel like they want to kind of further? What are some gaps? Or whatever else.
I think it’s just interesting, or just what it sounds to me, I guess, is there’s maybe sort of a blend of all those different kind of dynamics that I had mentioned. And I guess just to sort of continue on, if you want to speak to any of that or just generally why you feel like this is so important, because I guess it could serve any of those sort of needs and things, as I sort of outlined, but I don’t know. I guess there’s a lot there, I guess. Take it as you will of what makes this so important to do and to do well.
Alexis Karakas:
I had a professor in my capstone course in graduate school say, “Identify a mission, your guiding mission, for the work you do.” And I realized that mine was informed by all my experiences leading up to that, specifically the disparities I saw within maybe my organizations and my extracurriculars, hearing about various other fields, and my friends’ experiences as a young person in their profession. I remember, as a second year, I’m going into my second year. It’s my first RA training. It’s that summer. And I remember listening to the content of training and all of these concepts of conflict mediation, diversity, equity, and inclusion, it being the first time I heard those things and all of those concepts informing not just my RA role, but my life, my entire life, and the way I showed up in the academic space, in my personal life, in my future profession.
My mission is I want to send out people into their respective workplaces with the skills that we are able to teach here in the RA role. It’s very helpful here in the RA role when they’re serving their residents and when we’re serving students at large. But specifically, there are some that we’re learning here together that are going to make us better professionals. Whether you are going to be a lawyer, a doctor, a nurse, in tech, you are going to be using what we are learning here. And maybe creating that application, maybe synthesizing this current role with your future role, is going to help you maybe tune in better to this one. Maybe before you leave, we’re going to have a conversation.
And you can kind of gauge with your RAs how interested they are in actually participating. And this isn’t a part of their job. I don’t try to force it on them, but you kind of reciprocate what they’re willing to put in. At large, that’s my mission, that we’re kind of educating our folks here and sending them out with the awareness and intentionality that I think that they should be taking into the workplace.
Dustin Ramsdell:
A couple of good points there, and I thought of another one that sort of feeds into them, but to sort of bold and circle then underline before I tee up what I’m going to say. That idea of, if you’re teaching in a class, or you have an employee or whatever else, or that idea of drawing relevance or connections or context to things and just being like, “Wow, this RA job is giving me a lot and more than just a free room or a paycheck or whatever else.” That could deepen their appetite or engagement in the role and commitment to it because they’re just like, “Wow, this is super valuable. I’m getting so much out of this. It’s not just a transactional thing,” or whatever.
And I think it’s just very 30,000-feet view kind of thing, but the idea of, if this student feels their experience, which includes being an RA, I’m sure in addition to many other things, is just super valuable and meaningful, they’re going to be a really great alumni and maybe volunteer or give or whatever, but it’s just that idea of you’re sort of helping in your own way to have them see and be aware of how much they’re getting out of this experience at this institution.
And even just what you said, I think, is a really good call-out that this isn’t something that you’re forcing on anybody, but I think even just the notion of opening the door because I think sometimes people do feel … They sort of undersell it like, “I was just an RA, whatever,” and all that. It was just like, “No, it should be on your resume. You should be really proud of it, and you should talk about it and should use it as the example of so many things.” And just be like, “If you need help with that, I am here.” And like you said, certain people you’re going to be able to gauge, and they’re going to be buying into that and wanting to get more support from you. Kind of just an interesting dynamic.
But I know one piece of this that was kind of interesting to me to talk about was you’re doing all this. You’re making this investment. What do you think makes a former RA a really great employee?
Alexis Karakas:
I remember I had a fellow RA. This is back when I used to be an RA. He was applying for a role in a Big Five consulting firm. And you know how these big companies operate. The person mentoring him while he was applying to the internship was telling him that, “She was an RA, and they love hiring RAs here.” And it was very interesting to me. I had not heard of this. I was like, “Good.”
And then when I continued being an RA and when I started supervising RAs, it was just clear as day. They always say, “Emergency response, it teaches you how to be quick on your feet.” Or if you’re wanting to go into any sort of healthcare field, it’s just very transferable. The counseling skills that you learn. You may not want to be a therapist or a counselor. To be emotionally in tuned, to pause, to talk about self-regulation, to talk about mental health, these are all very, very important life skills.
One thing that I, as a formerly pre-law person, was very interested in is the surprising amount of technical writing that goes into writing an incident report or any of those administrative pieces that your institution may require of RAs. If you want to go into teaching, you learn curriculum. You learn that, especially if you have a residential curriculum in your institution, and you may be expecting them to create learning outcomes in their program proposals, they’re going to have to learn how to write learning outcomes and create assessments. They’re going to know what it takes to have a strong command of policy and to communicate policy and educate and learn about accountability. They’re going to learn about self-advocacy. I know about my rights. I know that there’s a process. I know that there are people that are going to take care of me in this space.
Creating the connection between housing and human resources in the workplace has been something that I’ve been seeing a direct line to. And of course, the biggest, biggest one of all is conflict mediation. There’s nothing more inevitable than conflict in life, and there is an increasing amount of fear to even touch or articulate conflict. In this current era, I think having the mediation skills that it takes to respectfully find compromise, to articulate common ground, emotion is so important.
All of these make not only great future employees, great RAs, but great people. Great parents, maybe. These are amazing life skills that we get to put into practice every day as resident advisors, and I feel fortunate to be able to, with my limited life experience, bestow to my RAs.
Dustin Ramsdell:
I think you put it really well. I think some people might’ve been listening and be like, “I don’t know. I can connect the dots,” or whatever. And I think you just did it very well. It’s a lot of things, a lot of really important things, that you can just even say are necessary to make good humans. Because I think it’s just like, “Well, I have more value than just being an employee or whatever.” Yes. This just does not serve your professional identity. It serves you as a person and everything. I’m glad that you kind of outlined it that way.
And I think it’s just that idea of, no matter what field you go into, it is a sort of incubator for some really good experiences and skills and just being a part of a team and everything. It’s just such good stuff.
I hope other people are sort of inspired, I guess, to take up a similar mantle, as you did, of really interfacing with this pretty head on and trying to create the structure to facilitate this for folks just versus being reactionary of the student comes to you for a letter of recommendation or whatever it might be. I think there’s a lot of value in being proactive.
But as we wrap up, any final bits of advice or resources that you’d like to share with folks on this topic?
Alexis Karakas:
I’d like to create that distinction too. It’s not how am I cultivating, how am I harnessing this moment with my RA to create a better worker in the future. It’s how am I cultivating a person who’s going to be able to advocate for themselves, who’s going to show up good for their future patient, who’s going to know how serve best whoever they’re going to serve in the future and especially serve themselves as future professionals.
My final bit of advice is, if you can, take this moment, take this year you’re supervising this RA, and be intentional with those one-on-one meetings and that relationship that you’re creating because it can create some really valuable impact. In this moment in time where we’re wondering, “There’s a lot of stuff in the world going on. I can’t do anything. I feel helpless,” it has helped me to think to myself that if there’s one thing, if there’s one very small thing that I’m doing, it’s talking to these folks and helping them go out into the world as better people, better citizens. I say that with humility. I’m not saying that I’m changing these people, and they’re all turning out great, and I’m the best, but that at least putting in some effort into broadening perspective is some of the coolest work that we could be doing.
Dustin Ramsdell:
I think it is fair to say. Doing this kind of stuff, it’s those ripple effects or downstream effects, I guess, of just helping to develop all the skills that you outlined and helps many other people. Hey, if you’re good at conflict mediation, you might be helping be the diplomat between some folks that are disagreeing on your team, your family, whatever it might be.
I think something that came into my head and the final thought and more existential stuff is, to my point earlier, is that idea of folks are sort of questioning the value of higher education and college and whatever else. This is a pretty sturdy way to refute that of just this idea of an environment that you can go into and have a job like this while you’re studying and doing this kind of work in tandem, and there’s the ability of everything to feed off each other and everything. It’s just such a unique environment to get all of that.
You would hope. Whether it’s being an RA and a lot of students, a good chunk of student staff members at an institution are RAs, but it’s orientation leader, tour guide, just something where it’s just you’re getting a lot out of it and sort of respecting that as a student and as the staff who support them who can be in a really powerful place to mentor them and guide them to really fully capture and kind of maximize everything that they’re getting out of that opportunity.
Appreciate you for doing all that you do, for being a part of the blogging team at Roompact, and for joining me for this episode. Really great stuff, and I just really appreciate your time.
Alexis Karakas:
It was lovely to chat. Thank you.
