Tag: RA

Flashback on February

Happy Leap Day! Today I am thankful for the beautiful sunshine and clear sky that let me do some homework outside (and get some much needed Vitamin D!) With that being said, February flew past me and this extra day has allowed me to soak in my February memories. I shared briefly in my last post about some girls on my floor who always go the extra mile. This month, I gave the whole floor the opportunity to share some love.

My February bulletin board.

My bulletin board this month allowed for girls to send each other some love. On Valentine’s day, someone even put candy in every envelope! Once again, I absolutely adore the culture these girls create on our floor and count myself lucky to be a part of it.

My door decs this month.

This month, the door decs were “lovebugs.”

Realizing how fast this month went past, I started to think. If one month went by this fast, the next two years of college is going to be done in the blink of an eye. And after that, life. My message today is to not let life pass you by. Go out and do something everyday, whether it’s just going on a walk and enjoying the beauty of creation, or going to Chick-fil-a with a friend. Make every day count.

None of us know how much time we have on this earth. Count your blessings each day, love those around you fiercly, and make each moment count.

Every day is an opportunity. What are you going to do with this one?

Reflecting on My Blessings

Can we all agree than January took forever? I mean, from a college student perspective, it felt like I did so much in that half a month we were at school.

It only took me half of February to realize I’ve been slacking on my blog game. I haven’t even updated about my January RA stuff! Well, I’m going to remedy that right now.

For January’s door decs, I made party hats to celebrate the New Year!
For my bulletin board, I gave students the opportunity to share some of their favorite songs. It was a big HIT 😉

Now, I have to brag for a minute. I am blessed in so many ways (can I get an Amen?!) and being given this floor was just one more blessing! My residents are the absolute sweetest. They always come through on interactive things, like this bulletin board. One room on my floor has been giving back to others, and I just wanted to share that love with all of you. In December, this room hung candy canes on their door, free to any who wanted a little Christmas cheer. This month, they have hung free valentines on their door for people to take.

I mean, c’mon! How much sweeter can it get?

Something that being an RA has taught me is to always count my blessings. I encounter so many different types of people at college, but being an RA gives me relationships with people I never otherwise would have. They help me to truly appreciate what I have been blessed with, and I hope I never take it for granted.

I challenge you this month to reflect on your own blessings. What has God given you? How can you show your appreciation?

Tune in next time to see some ways I’ve been showing my appreciation to my residents.

Growing Pains

Hello all! I am currently one final away from Christmas break, which is extremely exciting. However, because of my position as an RA, I stay at school until the end of finals week and the dorm closes to check out all my residents. I thought you should get to see the door decs and bulletin board for this month’s programming…

All of my residents are gifts!
The Giving Tree: Inexpensive or FREE ways for students to give back to their communities.

The months of November and December have brought with them a season of change. Of course, they are part of the most stressful time of the year for college students everywhere because, one word- finals.

No, this year was different. In the past month and a half, a huge role model in my life here at the university has gone on to different things. She was more than my supervisor. As some of you know, I moved onto campus on August 1st of this year, 24 days before the first day of class, 10 days before fall athletes would move in, and 23 days before everyone else. This woman fed, trained, and entertained 8 RAs for that amount of time every single day. She became our mom away from home. As the semester continued, she checked in on us as a group every week. And then she checked on us individually every week. About a month ago, out of the blue, we were told she wouldn’t be returning to the university.

I was heartbroken. 4 of the 8 RAs quit the day we found out. Students began to pass around a petition to sign to show that the students were angry. We went a week with basically no one in charge of us. The only word that could sum up that week was chaos. Incidents were happening left and right in the dorms and us RAs were having to deal with them essentially on our own. In the midst of all that, the RAs were expected to deal with the students, put on our programming events, put up our door decs and bulletin boards, keep up our grades, get over the loss of our supervisor, and keep a smile plastered on our faces. By far, that was the hardest week of my semester, and many other people’s.

I think we can all agree that those of us in college are at a weird stage in our lives. It looks different for everyone, but basically we are in a battle between being a kid, being a student, and adulting. We are the “in between.” Honestly, it’s a weird stage. Handling that week (that felt like a month) was what I like to call a growing pain. It was hard. It was weird. It was unfair. I didn’t like it. But I made it through.

I know that these “growing pains” won’t stop happening. After all, what is life about if not growth? We are constantly learning and growing, and yeah, sometimes it’s gonna be painful. Sometimes, it won’t feel like it’s worth it. But it’s not impossible.

I still miss my supervisor like crazy. In fact, it’s one of the things that makes me emotional after only a few seconds of talking about it. But things happen, life happens, we grow.

And it hurts.

But afterwards, we stand a little taller and we’re a little stronger.

See the source image

Spooky Season

I call this “Spooky Season” for many reasons. The obvious Halloween time but also, some recent activities in my life can only be described as spooky. For instance, the way my bank account is looking at this point in the semester…

Tears for being a broke college student aside, I wanted to share how my door decs and bulletin board turned out for this month. As an RA, we update our door decs and bulletin boards on a monthly basis. For October’s door decs, I decided to use different Halloween themed scrapbook paper, stencil one of four classic Halloween symbols on them, and then outline in purple glitter. Here’s my results:

For my bulletin board, I was originally planning on doing a 3D pumpkin patch, but after a few mess ups, I went in a different direction…

I know all of my stuff is Halloween themed, but if I’m being honest, Halloween is definitely not my favorite holiday. So of course, I added some fall touches to my room decor.

My “Hello Fall” sign on my door!
A cute reminder to be thankful that hangs right next to my desk!

And of course, the day I finally get around to posting all of my fun fall decorations, it SNOWS! I can see snow on the cars outside my window so I guess it’s a sign that I should go ahead as scheduled and put up my Christmas tree on November 1st…too soon?

We’re All in This Together

September is already here and classes are in full swing. Coming off of freshman year, sophomore year is a whole new ballgame. I am very involved this year again, being the Student Government Association secretary, a Resident Assistant, and a member of several clubs on campus. I stay very busy, but it’s a good busy.

As many know, I changed my major about two weeks before school started. I was a Business Administration major with a marketing concentration but have sinced decided that my passion is working with kids. For the past two summers, I have been blessed to babysit four wonderful kids and watching them learn and grow just over the summer is such a happy thing for me. As I was sitting at the kitchen counter with the youngest of these kids (3 years old at the time), we were working on sign language. I took a sign language class this summer and taught the kids I babysat a little of what I would learn every week. As I watched the youngest spell her name back to me in sign language, it hit me how fulfilling it is to help someone learn and be successful. That moment was the defining change in my mind.

I am not the only person who has an internal struggle about what they want to do with their lives. But last year, it seemed like I was. Everyone that I talked to had some moment in their lives that helped them decide that they were going down the right career path. I had never experienced that moment, and became very frustrated with the classes I was taking last year. But I didn’t change my major, because I wasn’t confident in what I would change to and didn’t want to lose what I had already started as far as business classes.

This summer, I had that moment. So I’m here to say to all of the high school seniors, the college freshmen, sophomores, or even juniors that you will have a moment at some point. I would say to be on the lookout for it, but mine hit me out of nowhere. When that moment comes, and you make the switch, you will know immediately if it was the right decision. For me, I was able to immediately enroll in a lower level education course. It’s already my favorite class. I come to class so excited and eager to learn. I leave barely able to contain the happiness I feel about choosing this career. And that’s how I know it was the right choice.

So if you’re anything like I was and you feel lost and unsure about if you’re making the right choice, maybe take a step back and evaluate not just with your head, but with your heart, if it’s what you want to do. Check yourself: do you feel that excitement when you think about it? Are you eager to start on it? If not, I encourage you to explore some other topics outside of the classroom to find things that are fulfilling to you and make you feel that excitement.

One last thing, talk to someone about the struggle. I talked to my friends constantly about how I felt taking the business classes. When I told them I thought I was going to switch to elementary education, they supported me 100% and were so encouraging. That was another reason I knew I had made the right choice. If you talk to people about it, they can help you figure out what things you enjoy doing and they can help guide you and encourage you when you need that reassurance. Remember, we all go through this.

Here We Go Again

I have officially been at college a week already! For the 2019-2020 school year, I am a Resident Assistant. This week has been full of all sorts of training to prepare me for any situation that might come up and lots of bonding with our fanastic group of RAs. We’ve had a lot of fun this week, but I know all of us are ready to have our residents here!

Week 1 of being an RA and I’ve already learned a lot and made so many memories. So much training ensued including Title IX, Step-Up (bystander) and CPR and AED, along with a test this morning to see what we learned. We decided themes for each dorm and more specific themes for each floor. We made door decorations, wall decorations, and we decorated bulletin boards. We checked each and every room to make sure they were in shape for the residents coming our way tomorrow. And tomorrow they will come.

My floor decorations had to be within the ‘camping’ theme of the whole dorm, so my residents get little RVs with their names on them.

We start our day not so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 7:15am tomorrow to get prepped for check-in for our fall athletes. The day will be spent moving in our new residents and helping with whatever needs done around campus. We’ll have our first floor meetings and get to meet the first round of our residents. The real test comes with duty.

All of the RAs make door decs for each other and a few of the ones on my door are pictured here.

Myself and another RA pulled duty for the first weekend and will therefore be keeping watch over the dorms until the wee hours of the morning. Wish us luck…

One of my wall decorations to help students find their way around ‘camp.’

Overall, I’m super excited for this year! So many changes occurred this year and I’m ready to take on being a Sophomore. The first day of classes is still a couple weeks away but I have to say, here we go again!

Busy Bee

This might be weird, but I am happiest with a busy schedule.

For a lot of people, being busy just means stress. While it sometimes does for me too, I walked out of a meeting today feeling motivated. Having a full schedule is actually a good thing.

Why? A full schedule keeps you active and interactive with people, which is actually very important. Being active with people during my day just helps me to feel so much more involved in school and in the lives of people around me.

I am a planner by nature. I love to have everything written out, color coded, and highlighted if extremely important. When my planner is full of meetings and my to-do list is overflowing, that is when I am the most productive. I don’t know why, but it just is that way.

I know the end of the school year is quickly approaching for many of us, so I wanted to send a little encouragement to current college students, high school seniors, and anybody else who might need it.

Get involved. Being involved is going to be one of the best things that ever happened to you. You meet new people, have experiences you never otherwise would, and you can impact others.

At the beginning of this school year, my university put on an activities and clubs fair where we could walk around to sign up for different clubs. I signed up for a number of them and being involved in those has led me to many friendships, as well as involving me in things I wouldn’t otherwise consider.

So incoming college freshman, sign up for the clubs. You don’t have to do all of them, but you might find that you’ll meet your people there.

For my busy self, I ended up getting involved in things for next year that I hadn’t really considered before connections made through other clubs.

Next year, I’m going to be a Resident Assistant, which basically means I’m in charge of a floor of one of the dorms. Before being involved with ResLife, I would NEVER have considered signing up for that. We have to come early, we are responsible for the actions of our residents, and we have to go through a lot of training for potentially bad situations. But, I decided to step out of my comfort zone.

Next year, I’m also going to be the Student Government Seceretary. It’s not a huge position, but it means I am on the Executive Board for SGA, and therefore am in charge of a lot of things on campus. I’ll be adding these to my plate next year, on top of all the other clubs I’m currently involved in.

The moral of this story is, GET INVOLVED. And if you’re school doesn’t have something you want to be in, start your own club! I promise you, being involved makes your school experience at least 10x better.