Hi I am a senior and I was waitlisted to be an RA. I accepted the role and will have to move rooms (thankfully in the same building). Is there any advise you have, things you wish you knew?

Hello all! I hope everyone is doing well to handle the coronavirus, as both RAs and as people. Now, this story may not be as severe as some others, but I find it to be embarrassing enough.

Our university started moving students back in recently. Each student was required to book a time and day to move in, in order to encourage social distancing. So there's a whole schedule set up for the RAs to make moving in as smooth as possible, without placing too heavy a weight on any specific RAs. Today, I was helping only a handful of students to move-in through giving out keys, advice, etc. Naturally, I mess up this simple task, giving the wrong keys to the wrong person (Person A). About an hour after unpacking, the person the keys actually belonged to signed in. So off I go, back to Person A, who's already decently unpacked, to tell them to re-pack and move down a floor.

Now, this is my second year as an RA, and five new RAs are starting in my building. Of course, I want to be a good role-model for these new RAs (and the new students too). Because each RA needed to take a virus test before beginning training, I missed out on a decent chunk of in-person training sessions. In a week's time, I've managed to embarass myself in front of everyone that I'm trying to be a role-model for.

When it comes to being an RA, I have a bit of Imposter Syndrome going on. Even though I enjoy being an RA, I applied during a particularly weak year for applicants, and many of the current RAs are significantly better at doing their job than I am, at least from my perception. So such a weak start to the semester is far from auspicious. I plan to do my best to turn it around, though I'm not sure how easy that'll be to do with how limited things are this year.

TL;DR: I've made an embarrassment of myself, and I feel like I'm objectively the worst RA in my building.

Hey ras so I wanna get a lizard in my room. Would you recommend, or how I would hide it?

I’ve dealt with two males who would constantly fight. One would piss the other off, which would result in an abundance of emails to me. We re did their roommate contract, had mediations, mediations with the RD, but neither was willing to switch out of their room. Go figure.

This went on from Aug-NOW. I would be getting an email once a week from roommate y about roommate x violated the contract. It was exhausting.

Now, in a female cluster. Roommate z cannot talk about problems in person, deathly afraid of confrontation. Roommate s is brash and to the point. They’ve lived in anger for months and just NOW want a switch. When the issue was first brought up to me, I offered a mediation. Z said no she couldnt handle it. But now she messages me every 3 days asking when they will be separated. WHY DIDNT SHE HAVE A MEDIATION THREE MONTHS AGO TO SOLVE THIS?!? Roommate S is also very curt and rude, annoyed she hasn’t been switched out yet. Both harassing me about when they will be switched.

NOW I have a new conflict with a new cluster, and she’s been so wishywashy. No I don’t want to mediate, yes I do. No I can’t talk right now, now I can.

I’ve never experienced this and I am so fuckingburnt out. I HATE being an RA now because these entitled and demanding residents are sucking the life and happiness out of me. I wish I could tell them they’re the reason I want to quit. It’s such bullshit that these pussies can’t own up and solved their own problems. Or at least realize I DONT HAVE CONTROL

I’m a new hire for the this semester so I’m new to my floor getting to know everyone! Background our community has a problem with homeless problem somehow they manage to get in and sneak into buildings. last night we finally got the guy sneaking into my building, unfortunately thanks to a girl who walked in on him in the women’s restroom naked, and the police came but by the time they got there he was gone. Not only that but I have a resident who likes to draw penis jokes all over the decorations and my door ie “I love c**k” you know the kind of stuff it’s just getting in my nerves because I don’t want my supervisors to see any advise?

So I just got hired on to be an RA at my college. I'm currently dating an RA, so I know some things that come with the job, but it's all official things (paperwork, checkout times, rules, etc.) Does anyone have any "of the record" advise that they can give me? Thanks!

Here's to the RAs Who's residents cursed them out day 1 Who's hall director doesn't communicate Who cover peoples duty shifts

Here's to the RAs Who work halloween nights And the football weekends Who have 3 transports by the first week

Here's to the RAs Who go to sleep at 7 am After diffusing a party with 13 people And calling the police because half of them were over 21

Here's to the RAs Who talk residents down from their depression Who miss classes for a resident who's afraid they'll hurt themself

Here's to the RAs Who love what they do Despite the pain and the lack of sleep Despite the struggles and turmoil

Here's to the RAs Who are RAs because Every day they get to help someone We feel happy and fulfilled

Here's to the RAs

I wrote a book of res life and conduct stories.

The Running Naked Guest and Other True Tales of Residence Life, Student Conduct, and College Shenanigans is available on Kindle. It’s 20+ years of party busts, rounds, conduct cases, and Title IX. Please check it out!

The Running Naked Guest

Part 1

Part 2

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Hallo everyone!

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I could give you a long list of reasons as to why I haven't written this sooner, but, the short version is the catch all 'life got in the way'. So without delay, here is part three :) in advance, cabin crew advise that there is turbulence ahead, therefore vomit bags will be passed amongst the passengers

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Today's story begins with a character profile of a student we'll call Jeff. Now Jeff, in hindsight, was what you'd call a bit of a 'neckbeard' in modern parlance. Both literal in terms of the light ginger scruff of neck hair he'd grown, and, in terms of his general hermit lifestyle and lack of bodily hygiene. Jeff would rarely come out of his room, other than the occasional nights out with the university's Anime Society, and seemingly never used the shared kitchen he'd been assigned. Instead, to sustain him, he would live exclusively off of takeaway meals. Well, we assumed. Mostly because the polystyrene containers of kebabs, pizza and other greasy indulgences would enter his room with him most nights. This will come to bear.

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Now, I've mentioned his lack of bodily hygiene. I cannot stress enough that this got worse, and worse, and WORSE throughout the year. It evolved over the course of the year from a general "That lad should really buy some deodorant", to "Jesus Christ does Jeff even know what a shower is?" to "I can see a bend in the fabric of spacetime around Jeff".

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It got to the point where my boss, building manager, had to curtail him to the office one day, (unfortunately a hot day at that for a room with 1 small safety window cracked open), and ask him to keep on top of his hygiene. Jeff nodded, said he understood, and actually the smell improved...for a time. Now this is all relative of course; he'd dialled down to Hum Factor 5, but he could still peel paint from a distance.

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A few more complaints throughout the year occurred due to his interesting take on bodily odour but generally speaking, Jeff spent even less time outside of his room, so nothing much came of it. That is until the summer...

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One of the things you have to understand about our job is that when the summer came around, the university essentially made a bit of extra cash by renting out the dorms to various groups - international kids on school trips mostly, that kind of thing. This meant that come mid June, when 99% of the students had left the dorms, part of our responsibility was to inspect the rooms, remove any left over bits and pieces from kitchens and generally make sure the building was ready to be swiftly wiped down by the cleaning staff before the summer tenants arrived. You might be able to see where this is going. Vomit bags at the ready? Comfy? Then I'll continue

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My colleague and I looked after our floor, and on day 2 we entered Jeff's room. Now, as previously described (I think in part 1), these are pretty small rooms with an en-suite bathroom. The main 'room' with bed and desk is maybe 10ft x 6ft, and the attached en-suite bathroom is a little over half that again, with a 3ft x 3ft shower cubicle with a 6 inch shower tray.

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The first thing that hit us was the smell. Words cannot describe so I'll describe what I saw instead and I'm sure you'll get the idea. Firstly, bin bags. Bin bags upon bin bags, all entirely full up and overflowing, were stacked along every wall. I'm talking easily at least 20 bags, with a small footpath to the bed. Each of these bags was engorged with stinking rubbish (garbage for you Americans), entirely consisting of polystyrene containers from delivery food - most of them with half of their contents still in there. The rest of the contents of these bags was cans of John West Red Salmon. These ones, in various states of decay, from 'probably opened a day or so ago' to 'these have been here since his first week'. So essentially, open cans of rotting and putrefying fish. I imagine Surströmming probably has a similar odour. My colleague had been out celebrating his birthday the night before and had to exit the room with some haste, green and 2 seconds away from losing his fried breakfast

The walls themselves were smeared with various sauces, boogers and what I can only describe as what looked like human shit. I didn't much fancy giving the mysterious brown smears a sniff to check so I made a note of it on my checklist and moved on. The desk in the room had chunks missing from the hardwood surface, and, various nonsense words scratched into the top. The underside was like a an alien landscape of encrusted nose goblins, blood stains and what I can only describe as several yellowing stalactites of what could only have been semen. If this paints a picture in your head of a neckbeard furiously masturbating to the point of bleeding and just cumming on the underside of his desk, then you're about where I was at the time. I wondered about whether I should come back with some kind of protective suit...

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Bag 1 filled up sir? That's a shame, there's more on the way, as we move on to the bathroom

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Firstly, the mirror above the mirror was somehow encrusted with a grease that made the mirror utterly useless in its primary function. The sink, white porcelain now brown and yellow, had blocked. The source of the blockage? Vomit. Apparently, months worth. It was full to the brim with it, and it had obviously been there for some time - to the point where the only solid chunks were those floating on the surface of an acidic soup which had long digested what was beneath. The toilet? Blocked. The source of the blockage? Kittens! Nah, it was vomit. Well, I say vomit. The vomit was more of a jus that had been introduced to the top of a massive pile of shit. It had piled up the the lid, and similar to the sink, appeared to have been there for some time, Jeff just adding to it as needed. The floor had more empty cans of John West's Red Salmon strewn over it. Well, empty for the most part. The shower, with its 6 inch tray, had its plug hole blocked. The source of the blockage? More vomit! The 6 inch tray was now 5.5 inches or so deep with congealed vomit, fresh vomit sitting on the top. My theory behind this all is that Jeff, who was known to go out for a drink with his beloved Anime Society, must have blocked initially blocked his toilet with vomit/shit and moved onto the sink to deposit his half digested chicken burgers and cheap university bar lager. When this had blocked, he'd moved onto the shower. And blocked that.

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Needless to say, at this point, my constitution was waning. I turned about face, opened the door to the bedroom, and immediately came face to face with Cookie, our 60 year old, tiny cleaner, armed with a sponge and a bottle of surface cleaner. Grimacing, I could only sheepishly say "Sorry Cookie, I think you might need something a bit more substantial", and skulk off to find the nearest non vomit-blocked shower...

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My assumption was that Jeff must have had some serious mental issues beyond the usual neckbeardisms, some cocktail of OCD and Aspergers/Autism, hell maybe even an eating disorder of some kind. Alas we'll never know now. And I still can't look at cans of salmon

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Part 1

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Hallo again everyone! I got such a nice response from Part 1, so I thought I'd move swiftly along with part 2...

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It was 22:15 on a relatively boring Tuesday night, with 15 minutes to go until I finished for the day, about 3 weeks into a new term. I had been on shift since 17:00 and I was looking forward to walking the 2 minutes to the flat that my GF ,(now ex), and I shared at the time, eating some pasta and watching Star Trek or playing WoW until I fell asleep. Hey, I never claimed to be a social butterfly!

I was mulling over which microwave sauce to cover my sad pasta in when...

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SLAM!

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The front door to the halls exploded open, only to be slammed shut just as quickly. A dishevelled, very upset student who we'll call 'Sarah' was rushing towards me, crying hysterically. I calmed her down, got her some tissues and was just about to find out what was wrong exactly when...

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BANG! BANG BANG BANG BANG!

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...someone was beating the hell out of the glass door that was the front of our reception area. Sarah turned to me with full 'rabbit in headlights' eyes.

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"What's going on, Sarah?"

"Its my boyfriend" she gets out beween sobs "Well, my ex. I told him I didn't want to be with him anymore cus I was going to uni..."

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'Is that it?' I think. Well, OK, upset girlfriend, nothing too unusual. A lot of the students would come to the RA's to discuss issues like this so I dialled down the panic a bit. Until she decided to finish the sentence

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"...and he'd gone to prison"

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Oh

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"OK Sarah, so why is he here and banging on the door?"

"He followed me here to the uni when he found out I was going here! He doesn't want me living my life away from him, he called me up threatening to hurt me and followed me after I finished my classes. He's got a hammer in his van!"

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Oh

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First things first, I sat Sarah down, and went to confront the ex who by now was banging on the door with some intensity, and had started ranting and raving about his 'baby girl' and how she needed to 'look after me and cook and clean' and 'stop fucking around wiv other guys'. I tried to tell him to leave the premises before I called the police, he of course was having none of it.

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"YOU LET ME THREW THIS DOOR NOW OR I'M GOING TO COME IN THERE AND SMASH YOUR FACE IN, HER FACE IN AND ANYONE WHO TRIES TO GET IN MY WAY!"

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Very surprisingly, he actually left all of a sudden. After he'd been gone for a couple of minutes, I returned to the office to try and get some more information from Sarah before filing the necessary reports and continuing my evening of Azeroth and al dente. Sarah had calmed down a bit now so I was able to give her information about who to contact if it happened again, what defines abuse as far as the uni was concerned, how we couldn't let anyone in we didn't know etc etc.

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"What was he in prison for incidentally?"

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"GBH" (for those unfamiliar with the British justice system, 'GBH' stands for 'Grievous Bodily Harm' - think of it as another way of describing aggravated assault)

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Oh

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BANG! BANG BANG BANG BANG!

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Oh no

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I left the office, turned the corner to the front doors only to find loverboy had returned with renewed vigour. And his hammer. I immediately noped back to the office and called 999 (the Brit version of 911 for those not in the know ;) ). I gave all of the information - who I was, who the student involved was, who loverboy was. Oh yeah and the fact that A CRAZY EX PRISONER IS THREATENING TO KILL MYSELF AND MY STUDENTS WITH A HAMMER PLEASE SEND SOMEONE NOW!

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I'd like to say that the local constabulary were vigilant and showed up quicker than you can say 'Hammertime'. I'd like to say that. However, I actually spent the next 50 minutes hiding Sarah in the office, warning students in the halls to stay in their rooms and trying to get this now foaming madman to listen to reason and politely fuck off. Needless to say, he didn't, instead opting to start hitting the metal guide poles set up outside for our disabled students with the hammer, and getting louder and louder.

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Finally, a cop car shows up, takes it time parallel parking into a suitable space, and generally going as slow as possible. 2 police officers make their way over to the building, by which point the ex has bolted, no where to be seen. The coppers come in, I give them a statement, as does Sarah. In the middle of this, loverboy starts banging on the front door again, albeit this time a bit quieter and sans hammer. The two officers go out to have a chat with loverboy, and Sarah and I wait 10 minutes or so before they return

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"OK," I ask "What happened?"

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"Well, he was very angry wasn't he? We've asked him to leave the premises alone and he's walked off to his van now so he shouldn't be any more trouble"

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"Right...what about the hammer though? I mean he was threatening me, Sarah and the students that live here. Surely that can't be tolerated?"

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"He had a hammer?"

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"Yes. I told the operator over the phone, and, I told you as soon as you got here!"

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"Oh...we didn't know he had a hammer. He's on parole at the moment, if we had known he had a hammer we would have had grounds to arrest him immediately"

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F...M...L

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Luckily, we never did see him again and Sarah , as far as I know, was left alone from then onwards. I was sad to hear she'd dropped out the next year, to spend more time at home in a relationship - one can only hope it wasn't the same guy

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Join us next time for Part 3: The Red Salmon!

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Cheers!

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Hi all,

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First time reader and poster! Only just found out about this subreddit, I had no idea I wasn't alone in my experiences of the hallowed position of RA. Upon posting with some popularity in https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9cpqos/in_honour_of_movein_day_ras_of_reddit_whats_the/ , and being advised that this is the place for such things, I present part 1, a copy paste of my time (around 12-14 years ago) that I was an RA in a British university's halls of residence:

I might add, not a private school, not a prestigious Oxbridge style university. A (at this stage 2 years after it changed) former Polytechnic. This will come to bear.

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The student halls I worked in had shared kitchens, but, everyone got their own room. Not that much bigger than a coffin but a room with an en-suite nonetheless. On moving day one year, after most of the parents had left and the smoke had settled, there was one student who looked very troubled, just standing in her doorway with two oversized suitcases. I'd seen her Mum wander off to her shared kitchen. The girl was just staring into the room, seeming more and more frustrated.

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"Hi there! I'm SpinningDaveMachine, I'm an RA for the Uni. How are you getting on?"

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silence

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"o.....k did you travel far to get here?"

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silence

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...but now she'd taken to lividly staring at the floor and refusing to speak to me. I couldnt figure it out. Thinking to myself that maybe she was from abroad perhaps, or, maybe had some anxiety issues, I said "Well, let me know if you need anything, I'm just in the office by reception", and turned around...

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...to end up face to face with a very livid mother of this girl.

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"Well?!" she barked at me

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"Umm...is there an issue?" I enquired

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"Why haven't you taken her bags into her chamber?!" I shit you not she said chamber

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Fumbling and saying "Oh", I thought 'why not?' - I was getting towards the end of my shift and the busiest part of the day had long gone by now. I picked up/dragged these two enormous suitcases into the room, a distance of about 5ft.

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"Well obviously you can't expect me to tip you" ,barks the mother again, "and as I'm sure you can expect I have some questions for you as well"

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"Its not uncommon for there to be some! I'll answer what I can!" I chirped, making sure the plastered visage was as smiley as possible.

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"Yes fine! These beds are awful, will she be able to bring her 4 poster in here?"

"...a 4 poster frame? In a room that's barely 6ft across? I mean there's no rules against it but I doubt you'll be able to fit it in"

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Mummy dearest dismisses this with a wave of her hand

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"That's not an issue for her, it will be for you obviously" (...it will?)

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"When do the maids visit?" she enquired

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"This is a self-catering hall. Students are expected to clean their own rooms"

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Big sigh from this old windbag followed by

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"I should have known. Well, what time are the meals served? I tried asking some of the staff down the corridor here but none of them would give me an answer. Why can't you hire bloody English people?!"

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"Well again, its a self-cateri...wait who were you asking?"

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Turns out whilst I'd been having 'riveting' conversation with her daughter, this trout of a woman had gone up and down the corridor, banging on doors and just walking into people's rooms, gasbagging and demanding information on various facets of the halls. The biggest issue being that she'd been harassing our Chinese students, some from Hong Kong some from London, about when they were going to cook her little darling's food and that there better not be "any bloody mice or snakes" in her precious princess' food.

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Yeah needless to say this girl didn't last long without Mummy's help. And by that I mean about 6 months into her first year she left university after becoming pregnant. With one of her Chinese-national hall neighbours...

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If you like this, let me know! Happy to answer anything I can, and, if people like this there's definitely enough for me to go on for at least a couple of chapters!

Tfw no residents clean up food and now your hall is full of ants :) I love my job.

Okay so I'm a mid-year senior hire in an apartment like set up. I have to do one program of my type choosing (social, life skills, personal health, or academic) before the end of the semester and I was thinking of doing like a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving type thing and serve vanilla ice cream, popcorn, jelly beans, pretzels, and buttered toast. Then as the program part I would do an ice breaker, introduce myself, ask them to introduce themselves, and have them fill out some questions in what do they expect from me and such.

Do y'all have any suggestions to add to this program? Any help would be appreciated!

1. At 2 AM, resident assistant marshmallowworld entered the girl's side bathroom and noticed a faint smell of alcohol and toilet paper all over the ground. She also noticed there was someone in the last stall of the bathroom not making any noise.
2. RA marshmallowworld stayed in the bathroom for about 5 minutes and no sounds came from the closed stall.
3. RA marshmallowworld returned to her room.
4. At 2:20 AM, RA marshmallowworld returned to the bathroom to check if the resident in the locked stall was okay.
5. The resident was still there but not making any sounds. RA marshmallowworld confirmed her previous observation that the bathroom smelled like alcohol.
6. RA marshmallowworld knocked on the bathroom door and asked the resident if she was okay.
7. The resident replied, "Ice cream from --- is NOT good for me."
8. After a slightly awkward conversation, RA marshmallowworld realized the resident was just having horrible diarrhea and had been trying to keep quiet every time the RA was there.
9. RA marshmallowworld told the resident to go to her or her roommate if she needed help later that night.
10. RA marshmallowworld told her to "have a good night" then returned to her room. RA marshmallowworld spent the next couple hours doing this

Im going to get right to the point, this year I was the RA on duty when one of my fellow RAs passed away. If you are comfortable reading on, please do- I want to share my story so I can talk about it with a community who understands the job. It was one of the first nice Saturday's this spring semester, thus huge amounts of day drinking was happening. As I work on a dry campus, most everyone had figured out to take their shenanigans off campus. Because of this there was hardly anyone in the hall, so I was extremely surprised when a resident told me someone was really drunk in the bathroom. As soon as the resident mentioned "slouching in the stall" I popped into emergency mode. I honestly don't remember much about the next hour, as I was in auto-pilot due to shock. I went into the mentioned bathroom, and immediately knew something was very wrong. I won't go into details, but I knew this was not an unresponsive drunk. As I called 911 and tried getting a reaction through the stall, I recognized the person in question as a fellow RA. I of course started shaking, as this was my coworker and friend, not some dumb drunk freshman. All I remember from the blur of the next few minutes was reporting the address and that the RA was unresponsive, running to give EMS the emergency card with pertinent information, and hearing them use the defibrillator. Security guards (who I had known well all year) were standing with me and I don't think I would have been able to keep standing and answering questions if it wasn't for their eye contact. I had called the hall director on duty, and they arrived with the director of housing. While they were tracking down my hall director, I stayed on the floor with EMS, the police, the fire crew, and pretty much any other emergency crew possible. I want to clarify here that I am not CPR certified, and I am not allowed to touch any residents because of it. I assumed that also applied to this scenario, which ended up being correct. Because I was the reporter, I had to stay on the floor with the police while everyone else who had a personal connection to the RA had other responsibilities. I was listening to every word that was said, while doing things like locking the other bathroom entrance, getting residents to leave through a back stairwell, and watching my phone blow up from my staff, knowing I couldn't answer their questions. This was very hard, and I don't think I would have been put in the situation if EMS understood what the RA job meant, they clearly didn't realize I had a personal relationship with the person. Anyways, amidst all the noise I heard EMS say to someone that "the coroner was on the way". Overhearing this news was the hardest thing I remember in my life. I dropped on the floor and I don't remember the next couple hours. After everything had been finalized and the staff had been briefed, I was told to write the incident report. This was the second hardest thing I have done, especially when my whole staff thought they wanted to know what I knew, and I didn't want to tell them. It was also hard at the funeral (and every day) knowing that I was the first loved one to know they had died.

This incident, as well as the loss of a deep friend has changed my life. I hope that I have found a platform I can find comfort from, while also sharing with others a story that could maybe change the way they live. Please none of that "they are in a better place" crap. Also, the cause of death is still not determined, and I feel strongly that it was not purposeful. I don't want to talk about any details about the RA or myself, but I would appreciate any comments or support that you have. I will answer reasonable questions.

I was on duty one night. I was the secondary RA, so I shouldn't have gotten any calls. 2:30am rolls around and I get a call. I figured it was the person working at the desk. Our desk staff are generally horrible at their jobs and the one working that night calls over the most trivial things. So I answer the phone to discover that it's the primary RA. Here is a rough breakdown of the conversation:

Me: RA on duty, this is supermanfan122508. How may I help you?

Primary: Hey, I just got a call from the front desk. Apparently, a guy was visiting some friends and went to a girl's room -- I guess they were friends. Anyway, he shouted "Avada Kedavra" at her and now she's too scared to go to sleep.

Me: Okay...

At this point, I feel that I should mention that the RA that I am paired with is always eager to get people in trouble. It gets annoying at times.

Primary: Do you want to go investigate?

Me: No.

Primary: Why?

Me: Well, for starters, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And secondly, if it did require investigation, it certainly doesn't require two RAs.

Primary: I don't know. I feel like we should do something.

Me: Like what? Tuck the girl in, give her a glass of milk, and read her a bedtime story? There is nothing that can really be done.

Primary: Heh. Alright, goodnight.

http://thetab.com/us/purdue/2016/02/29/ras-apology-students-shitty-ras-1044

Here goes nothing. First off, I've been an RA for two years and am going into student affairs once I graduate in May. A few weeks ago I was out with another RA for his birthday and met this amazingly cute and sweet guy (the RA's, girlfriend's, friend...keep up here). I ended up getting his number and we hung out that weekend.

To say the least it was perfect. We just hung out, played video games, talked a lot, and eventually made out on my bed. We've had another night like that since then and probably will again on tomorrow. I really, really, REALLY like this guy after just three weeks. The only trick is that he is a resident in my building and I'm not sure about what my boss will think. My heart tells me "love is love, pursue it even when it's not convenient" while my head tells me "your boss hates you and probably would try and get you fired over this." I've tried to date in this miserable college-town for two years to no avail, and now I finally see a glimmer of light as I grow closer and closer to this guy.

What are everyone's thoughts? Should I pursue something great or just try and forget what an amazing guy I'm falling for?

I'm writing a short story where the main character is an RA and have been lurking here for inspiration, but outside the particulars of any given story, is there anything I need to know about the RA experience that can't simply be guessed/intuited/extrapolated from having lived in a university residence? Tips, observations, myths busted, rules official, unofficial or personal? What would rustle your jimmies in a story from your perspective if the writer got wrong?

During training, we did Behind Closed Doors (mock scenarios that new RAs have to deal with). My friend got picked to deal with a father who was irate about potential mold in a room(played by our hall director).

The "father" got angrier and angrier the longer the conversation went on, while my friend stuck to his RA guns, remaining painstakingly calm and offering every solution and reference he could. Eventually the father threatened to "kick (my friend) in the neck if he didn't grab some bleach and take care of this right now."

My friend's automatic polite response: "Sir, that would be fine, but I'm going to place a work order for the mold first and see where that gets us."

The room absolutely exploded with laughter. We still won't let him forget it.

Just casually stopped to talk to one of my residents studying chemistry. He's stressing about a quiz and to prove how hard his class is he shows me a flash card "permanganate".

"What the fuck is this??" He asks me.

Without a moment of hesitation I recite "MnO4". Turns out I nailed it. I'm a finance major who has never taken a Chem class at college. In fact, the last time I picked up a chemistry book was over 5 years ago.

You'll get no sympathy from me my little freshman. Study well.

I knew that this particular room was going to be a problem room since opening weekend. I constantly heard these guys talk about drinking and getting high while they were smoking cigarettes with me. My first thought was "wtf, you're really going to say this in front of your RA?" and my second thought was "I can't actually do anything about it now, because just talking about it doesn't break any rules"

Three weeks of school later, I knew they were partying every weekend, but they were doing it off campus and they weren't causing any disturbances on campus, so I had no reason to report or investigate.

It was my first weekend on call. I had just finished my last round at about 2:30, and I crawled in to bed. My boyfriend and I cuddled and I quickly fell asleep.

At exactly 3:00AM I got a call on my personal cell phone. Campus police had called the duty phone but it never rang (we have terrible reception in the dorms, and we're trying to switch service providers).

I quickly dress and walk out the door to find campus police standing outside of that single problem room. I instantly grew upset at the fact that 1. this happened when I was asleep, and 2. that this happened at all. They hadn't been a problem before, and I had hoped they would keep their drunkenness off campus.

I knock on the door, announce who it is, and recieve no response.

I knock again, and again, no response. So I key into the room...

This is where it gets scary. One of the residents in that room, one of my residents, and one of my friends from freshmen year, was lying on the ground unconscious.

To make a long story short, we had to call an ambulance and he was hospitalized. It was probably the most frightening 5 minutes of my life while we waited for the EMT's to arrive.

Thankfully, prostaff responded quickly, campo helped confiscate the alcohol, and the resident was taken care of.

But still, I think "what if someone hadn't called this in... What would have happened to him?"

This is why I'm thankful to have residents who care enough to call things like this in when they see it, and I'm thankful to work for my school, because they have been nothing but helpful and supportive after the incident.

When my wife Annie* was an RA, there was a small faction of girls who hated her because she always caught them doing their stupid crap. One day she came back from class and found her door lock filled with super glue. She called maintenance from another phone, and sat in the hall studying until they arrived. One of the idiot faction walked by and said "what's wrong, Annie, did someone fill your lock with glue?"

Annie smiled sweetly and said "Why yes, Sally, someone did, so I'll just have to sit out here watching you guys, instead of being inside my room where you might get away with something."

*all names changed

A long time ago, when I was a resident. The guy in the next room had a crazy stereo, to the point when he turned it up to 11, he's shake stuff off my shelves on the far side of the room (i.e. not the shared wall between his room and mine). It was nuts. After a few discussions that went nowhere, my roommate & I talked to RA John. He talked to the neighbor, then told us the next time it happens, don't say anything, just come get me.

Now, RA John was a wrestler, about 5'10" and 250 pounds of solid oak, rocks, and/or muscle. He didn't so much "walk" as "stomp around", because it's just the way he was made. So my neighbor turned it up to 11 again at midnight, and my roomie & I went to get RA John. We found him sitting quietly in his room, studying. His response was wondrous to behold.

He stood up from his desk, took off his glasses and set them aside... stripped down to his boxers (WTF?)... messed his hair all up with both hands (WTF???)... told us " wait here" and stomped off down the hall to my neighbor's room. Damn-near broke the door with pounding on it. Neighbor killed the stereo and opened the door. RA John, standing there in his boxers and no glasses and messed-up hair, said (bellowed):

I'M DOWN HERE IN MY ROOM TRYING TO SLEEP, AND I CAN'T SLEEP BECAUSE YOUR F_CKING MUSIC IS TOO LOUD! WHEN I CAN'T SLEEP, I'M NOT HAPPY! AND WHEN I'M NOT HAPPY, YOU'RE NOT HAPPY! NOW TURN IT THE F_CK DOWN BEFORE I GET EVEN MORE UNHAPPY!!!"

And slammed the neighbor's door... stomped back down to his own room... put his sweats & glasses back on and said "There. That should do it." And calmly went back to his studying. We never had another problem.

Turns out resident upstairs broke the shower from being so drunk. Flooded 2 rooms, broke a ton of stuff in the bathroom. Had to dismantle the door to get in. Campus police then paramedics got called. When they got there resident was passed out on the floor. Had to be carried out. Fun night.

I wasn't an R.A., but four years ago, I was on Residence Hall Council for our community, which consisted of three dorms- two were generally the freshmen dorms, while one was for the upper-class and grad students. Mainly, we just did things like created counter-programming for the residents, and did fun things like a pizza night and a Super Bowl night.

First year was generally fun, although our president that year HATED our residential adviser. Sheri basically felt like Drew was this annoying twit who basically took credit for everything she did. In the end though, our community actually won Community of the Year at our school.

Second year was basically a reboot (I was the only returned councilman from the previous year), and things just went to hell. Adam was this well-meaning R.A. adviser who was hell-bent on getting us to win again, and started off the year with all of us talking about how we can win. He was rather intense about it. The president, Dede, was this girl who was kind of bossy and just directed everybody else to do the work, while her vice-president, Anna, couldn't stand her.

People were not as interested in RHC as they were last year, and Adam was struggling like hell to get people to stay in the group. Every time you were gone for a couple of meetings, he'd do this big welcome back and the like.

Things started coming to a head around October. There was a dinner for ResLife (which included everyone in the RHC), and Dede was mad at Anna for choosing to go home that weekend instead of being there, because our community needed to make a good showing at the big events. Anna relented, but was pretty upset about the whole thing and being there at the dinner, instead of at home.

So we (the anti-Dede faction) started looking at our options. We started compiling every little thing that Dede ever did that bothered us. I got one very nice, trusting girl to do the impeachment document we had by telling her about how Dede didn't like her, and said so. It went on for awhile. The climax happened during one particularly contentious shouting match between Dede and a guy we had tried so hard to recruit into the RHC over some kind of disagreement. Justin just went, "I can't fucking work with you, Dede!" and walked out and slammed the door.

Then Adam found out about the "incidents" we had going around and our plan to impeach Dede, and he basically gave us one big come-to-Jesus session where we aired out all the dirty laundry. Dede basically sat around while the anti-Dede faction talked about how much they hated her, and the pro-Dede faction talked about their bewilderment that we wanted to impeach her despite the fact that we were doing well. She teared up and promised to do better, but the anti-Dede faction basically just decided we'd tolerate her.

The rest of the year went alright. Adam basically spent the rest of the year trying to pump us up, and we actually had a lot of fun during one event in December where we delivered snacks to our residents. It was great.

Dede and Anna kind of chilled out. I think the venting session worked for the most part.

In May, our community won 2nd place.

This sub is pretty dead! Tell me how your year has been going. Personally, it's been a little difficult for me to adjust to this role because it's still hard for me to say no to things. I'm also getting used to being contacted by residents at very random times, but overall I'm enjoying myself.

Seeing any trends this year? I helped a freshman friend move in last month and their door decks were Captain America shields.

Also, how long do you keep with a theme?

So there was a party of some sort next door (loud music, yelling, the whole lot). Our noise policy is that if you have a complaint, you go to the room in question first, then if the problem persists, you call the RA on duty. Well anyway, my roommate and I go over and knock on the door, we hear "oh Shit it's the RA" and thus they start hiding everything. We hear glass hitting glass, air freshener being sprayed ,and just the overall frantic rushing of possibly getting caught. I now see why everyone says it's so easy to hear when residents are hiding things.