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My name is Crystal Marie Lopez. I am a senior at CSUMB and a
Resident Advisor at Avocet second floor.
I chose to become an RA . . .
Okay, so it really goes back
to when I was a little girl, there was this movie called The Son In Law
and it's with
Pauly Shore
and he plays an RA
and there is this small-town girl and she goes to college, she's having a horrible time,
and then he tells her, "well you haven't lived."
And he changes her life, and all of a sudden she becomes this beautiful butterfly,
she's out of her shell, she's all cool and stuff. And I remember thinking
"Oh, I want to do that!"
And so I was like, "okay, well maybe I'll become an RA when I go to college."
So when I finally did get to university
I came in as a transfer student and my RA whose name was
Brianna Hale
she came up to me one day and she was like
"Do you want to be an RA?" And I was like
"Yeah that sounds like fine."
She goes "'Cause I think you would be great at it."
And then she gave me some opportunities to
do a bulletin board and to help her host some programs. And then I realized
that, yeah, that was definitely
something that I wanted to do.
So my least favorite part of the job
is when
residents do things that they know they shouldn't be doing
and then you have to call them out on it
and then when you call them out on it they're like "Why are you getting me in trouble?"
And you're like,
"I didn't get you in trouble, your actions got you in trouble,
and you knew these were actions that you're not supposed
to be doing
but you're doing them anyways."
My favorite part about being an RA is seeing the development in the residents.
So they all come in
at the beginning of the year being one way, and then
at the end of the year when you're checking them out,
you've seen that growth. You can
see it in the way that they speak to you, you can see it
in all the accomplishments that they had that year,
and throughout the year they're sharing those accomplishments
with you. They're going and they're telling you
"Oh I passed this test," or "I got this class and
I passed the class." And so,
that's always a lot of fun for me.
People looking to apply to be an RA
should
be willing to challenge themselves.
And that means that if you're like
"Oh, I'm not
creative enough," okay, well then
challenge yourself to be creative.
They shouldn't apply if they're just looking for a free room and free food, 'cause then
you're going to hate the job.
You should apply if you're looking for growth,
if you're looking
for an opportunity
to help people.
If you're looking
for
an opportunity to help yourself.
And they shouldn't be daunted by all this talk about duty and
paperwork and all that.
You don't remember that stuff.