A key learning experience that has become a major part of my life is being a Resident Adviser (RA) for the residential halls at the University of Washington Seattle Campus. I obtained this role during my Sophomore year and decided to continue being an RA my Junior year as well. RAs are student staff members who live in the residential communities with residents and ultimately serve as a resource to those residents. The most important task of an RA is to develop meaningful relationships with residents and encourage them to make the most out of their Husky experience. RAs go through a very competitive three-stage application process: the essay application, the interview, and the RA class. Once you are hired as an RA, you go through three weeks of training prior to the start of Autumn Quarter. Through this key learning experience I was able to build confidence in being a resource and improve my interpersonal skills. This extracurricular experience was valuable to me because it taught me about decision making, empathy, mentoring, inclusion, and service.

My position as a RA is significant to me because it has given me self-confidence as well as incorporating my passion of helping others. Prior to becoming a RA, I commuted from home to the UW Seattle campus. After a couple months of commuting I sensed an extreme distance from myself and the UW community. As a result, I wanted to be more involved in my UW community and actively searched for opportunities that would allow me to do so. I was drawn to the RA position because it was unlike any of the leadership positions I had in high school. This leadership role required one to establish an inclusive and welcoming environment, while building relationships with others. One of my unique leadership identities is being a Relationship Nurturer and Developer. I wanted to cultivate meaningful relationships of my own and I knew that the RA role would help me achieve this. Furthermore, this role has pushed me out of my comfort zone because I have to be more outgoing than I usually am. RAs do not necessarily have to be an extrovert and extremely outgoing, but there are social aspects to this role. At first, being more social was difficult for a quiet and timid person like myself, but I was able to embrace the awkward and unease of initial interactions and learned to be more confident when conversing with my residents. Overall, this key learning experience has enabled me with the skills of how to deeply connect with others and has strengthened my want to help people in the future by becoming a healthcare professional.

• Create meaningful relationships with residents and encourages them to make the most out of their Husky experience

• Establish a cohesive and responsible community in the assigned residence hall

• Enforce and abides by the UW HFS housing policies and the UW campus

• Participate in weekly team meetings and facilitates a team approach with coworkers

• Complete administrative tasks and provides customer service to residents and visitors

• Promote diversity and inclusivity in order to create a welcoming and safe environment for all

• Organize and plan social programs for residents to participate in

• Create creative and informative bulletin boards relevant to college students

• Be on-call as the Primary/Secondary Resident Adviser on Duty in the evening from 5pm-8am every week

Decision Making

I identify myself as being a very indecisive person. It is a weakness that I continue to struggle with, but have improved on because of this job. As an RA, making decisions can be a daunting task because it is usually during a stressful situation. As part of the RA role, we must uphold and abide by the UW housing policies. In other words, we make sure that the residents of the building follow the housing agreement that they signed prior to moving in with UW HFS and if we see a resident violating a housing policy, then it means that we have to document that person. In addition, if a resident comes to us and discloses sensitive information such as if they have been having suicidal thoughts, then it is our job as mandated reporters to notify our supervisors in order to help the resident get the help that they need at that time. For instance, I have dealt with a situation where a resident needed to come talk to me because they were dealing with some difficult things and I could tell that this resident was not like their normal, bubbly self. Therefore, I had to make the decision to ask them the difficult question of whether or not they were having suicidal thoughts. By making that decision, I was able to provide the resident with the resources that they needed.

Empathy

Prior to being an RA, I thought that my ability to be empathetic towards others was strong. Whenever my siblings were dealing with a situation and needed to vent to someone, I would be their go-to person. This was the same way with my friends. People would trust me to listen to them and understand what they were feeling. With this experience, I was exposed to people who all had unique experiences and perspectives. By building rapport with each of my residents, I was able to obtain trust from them and they were able to feel comfortable in telling me their stories and difficult situations they were in. Therefore, with this learning experience I improved my empathy skills because of the connections I made with my residents.

Mentoring

This job also means that I am a role model to my residents by default. Having this added role to this position wasn’t that difficult since I have experience being a role model to my younger brother. However, I now had to transition to being a role model to people who were around my age. Most of my residents are Freshman and therefore, I do have more experience as them when it comes to being a UW student. Therefore, I always make sure that my residents can come to me for any questions that they may have regarding school or anything in general. Most of the time my residents do ask questions related to UW or life, and thus, I share my experience and knowledge with them so they can be successful.

Inclusion

An important aspect of the RA role is to create a welcoming and safe environment for all of the residents on their floor. Establishing an inclusive community is important to me because I want my residents to feel like they belong to the floor and UW community. Therefore, in order to implement this type of environment I make sure that all of the programs that I plan for my residents are inclusive to everyone. For instance, when I hosted a board game night I made sure that there was a wide variety of games for everyone to enjoy. Furthermore, when I have these programs I make sure that I send a mass email to everyone to ensure that they all know that they are welcome to come to the event. I also knock on their doors individually to invite them to go to the program once it starts because I think in-person invitations are more effective and also shows that I care about them being included.

Service

To ensure that the building maintains a thriving environment, it is an RA’s role to go around the entire building in the evening at designated times in order to make sure that everyone in the building is upholding the housing policies. Being the RA on duty for the night is an RA’s way of serving one’s community because we are on-call for the residents of the entire building. This means that when a situation arises such as finding someone passed out on the floor due to alcohol intoxication, the residents are able to call the RA on duty who will be able to respond to the situation and contact UWPD. During my time as an RA I have dealt with serious situations that involve alcohol or weed, but also not very serious situations like noise and a water spill. This role has taught me that giving back to my community by doing my job is important in order to maintain the order of the community.

My experience as a RA during my Sophomore and currently Junior year at the University of Washington, has helped me grow as a person tremendously. I have used my leadership competencies of inclusion and empathy in my everyday life when I interact with my friends and loved ones. Furthermore, this role has taught me that being confident in one’s decisions is significant because it builds self-confidence. In regards for the future, I think that the lessons that I learned from being a RA have helped me become more willing to give back to my community and want to create a more inclusive world.