Now that we are settled into campus and have decided on our classes for the first semester, we have just a few short weeks until the first round of exams are upon us. That means you don’t have much time before your social-emotional capacity is worn down, and now is the perfect moment to try out a few professionally certified techniques to drive your RA crazy.
Here are the top five ways you can make your RA regret their decision to live on your floor for the 2023-2024 school year.
5. Leave stuff in the hallways. RAs love tripping hazards, but they love fire hazards even more. Dump your scooters, shower caddies and shoes in the hallways so your RA knows you care about them every time they walk down the hall.
4. Put food in the bathroom trash cans. “It smells like used ramen combined with bathroom smells,” said Gillette 5 RA Will, which is basically just “ the smell of a landfill,” according to Crawford 6 RA Sarah. Rest assured, despite the signage, food in the bathroom trash is not just a roach issue, because seasoned RAs have often encountered (and wrought destruction upon) the sneaky little buggers before. The real issue is that the food stench percolates for millenia. If you tire of subjecting your RA to hair in the shower drains and toothpaste smudges in the sink, throw some noxious fumes in there and see what happens.
3. Don’t go to things and then complain about not being involved. All RAs have been through the first-year experience before, and they agree that with greater agency in college comes greater responsibility for each student to get themselves involved. Since RAs preach this at every floor meeting first semester, it warms their hearts to listen to their residents whine about being lonely when they haven’t left their dorm for an event since Founders’ Walk.
(If you are struggling to get involved, ask your RA if they have any suggestions for student orgs to join or consult AnchorLink for a full list of student organizations on campus. Start out with clubs with a low barrier to entry, and try to strike up a conversation while you’re there.)
2. Be disrespectful on the whiteboards. If your floor has one, your RA is probably making use of the white board to foster communication and low-stakes, low-reward community building on the floor. Since the floors are monitored by residential college system area coordinators (your RA’s boss) and open to residents’ visitors, it reflects really well on your RA when parents walk by on Family Weekend to a slew of EXPO-markered expletives.
1. Don’t like the GroupMe messages. When you leave your RA hanging, you subject them to the pinnacle of human psychological torture: isolation in the digital realm. “It’s like shouting into the void,” said Crawford 3 RA Derinique. In fact, this is the first thing RAs will scream when you ask them if anything bothers them about the job. If you haven’t ignored the GroupMe yet, it’s time to give it a try.