The quest continues

On Friday I had my four-hour group RA interview session. I've never been judged for four consecutive hours before, so this was a first. There are sixty(ish) applicants and only 20(ish) spots to be filled so about one in every three people in the room will be selected as an RA. The Office of Residence Life will also hire some alternate RAs in case one of their front-runners drops out of the race or something like that.

The process itself was fun. I got to meat some other people, one of whom went to high school not too far away from me.

We all started out in a large lecture hall and played some icebreaker games and then we were split up into about 6 groups of five or so and we were taken around in our groups to various activities throughout the building.

In our first activity we were broken into two groups and each group had to design a residence hall. My group simply modified the design of the current first year halls by adding a sink in the rooms, more comfortable furniture in the lobby, one large rec room area, key-card entry for after hours, mailboxes students could access themselves, a sign on the front desk to tell students when the mail has come in, an elevator for handicapped students and that sort of thing. All the while we're being observed and evaluated by other RA's.

Next we were given a list of issues that we might encounter as an RA and we had to rank them in the order we would take care of them. We had things like "one of your residents is showing signs of bulimia," "your best friend calls asking for advice," "you need to change the bulletin board," "you have a major exam you need to study for," "there's glass on the bathroom floor," and "your hall director wants to see you." We had to rank them individually and then come to a group consensus. I thought the task was difficult and enlightening all at the same time. It was hard to prioritize things so quickly when in real life things will happen when they want to happen. Your best friend will not necessarily call after you're done with the bulletin board but before you talk to the hall director. But, at the same time it's important to see that an RA might have to deal with most if not all of that type of stuff.

For our last session, we were given a list of fake people with different personalities and we had to put them onto our own RA staff. I really liked that activity because it was cool to think about who would work well together and who would make a good RA and just because somebody is not as enthusiastic as the next person or maybe they have less on-campus activities, doesn't mean that they're not just as qualified. The term "cookie-cutter RA" was tossed around a lot as something to avoid and that particular activity did a good job of showing that.

And now that it's over, all I have to do is wait... in the first week of February I'll get a letter saying a) I'm one of the top choices to be an RA next year b) I'm one of the top choices to be an RA alternate next year or c) thanks, but try again next year. Then, after I'm called back, I'll move on to individual interviews and then I'll take the RA training class which is about every Friday for seven weeks. THEN, after doing well in that class, I'll get the formal invitation to join the RA staff. There's a lot of competition for not a lot of spots, but I think I did fairly well in the group interview and think I'll be called back.

Stay tuned...