6103Phil

As a senior undergraduate student I was hired as a Resident Assistant (RA). To be completely honest I applied and accepted the position, not because of a great RA I had, but because I did not want to pay room and board. Little did I know the experience would change my life and bring me to graduate school with the intentions of working on a college campus for many years to come. As an RA I was given a floor of freshman girls. I was excited about the experience because I figured they would be the easiest to work with. It was clear early that I was mistaken and immediately had to change my tactics to guide them through their first days, then weeks, and then months of living independently from their parents. This is what working in student affairs means to me; learning where students are at, helping them reach the next level, and experiencing their success as if it is your own. The knowledge students learn in a college classroom is certainly very valuable, but I would argue that the experiences they have outside of the classroom during those four years of college are of equal importance to that of the classroom. First year students come to college with what I like to call a chaotic excitement. There are new opportunities and pressures at college. Students have a choice of joining hundreds of clubs or organizations, participating in various athletics, and the opportunity to pick their own field of study. They also are introduced and exposed to people unlike themselves from various backgrounds and they no longer have their parents or family to immediately lean on. This situation presents itself with an excitement to learn and gain exposure to everything they have never seen before, yet their hearts chaotically race because they are still “that high school student” and they have no idea what that means in this new setting. This is where faculty and staff in the field of student affairs have the privilege to step in and guide them into the unknown. College is a time of decisions and choices, but it is also a time of uncertainty and trembling nerves; therefore, as administrators or instructors we have the opportunity to show them what the world has to offer. Building a student’s confidence and motivating them by challenging them to think beyond their comfort zone is only at the surface of what student affairs can offer individuals. Loren Pope, in “Colleges That Change Lives,” identifies thirty-nine colleges in the United States that is unique, but also stands apart from the other institutions. They offer each student their hand and guidance, not as a student body, but as one person trying to figure out who they are without their high school identity. As Pope states these colleges impact students because they “change their lives, help them find themselves, raise their aspirations, and empower them.” As an individual in student affairs I have the ability to change their lives through my actions, raise their aspirations through my words, and empower them through my work to go beyond their dreams to achieve //their// greatest level of success.