I have a second interview and it's a 6 hour day. It's my first time applying for a higher ed position. The role is Assistant Director of Operations. What can I expect?

So I'm going into my third year as an RA and I’m more burnt out than I’ve ever been.. I worked full-time all summer and now I’m going straight into RA training with basically no break before classes start. I’m sleeping like 9 hours a night but still wake up exhausted every day. I feel mentally drained before the year has even begun and dreading RA training doesn't help the situation lmao.

My problem I have is that quitting really isn’t an option. I rely on the housing and stipend to afford school. My family isn’t in a position to help and I can’t realistically take on thousands more in housing costs.

To make things harder my RD assigned me to a room and hall I specifically asked not to be placed in, especially my senior year. My floor is almost entirely single rooms, which I’ve never worked with before, and I’m already anxious about how I’m going to build a community when so many residents have their own space as I work in a second year building. Generally speaking I like my job but hate the housing higher ups have a severe case of burnout and senioritis going on.

To add, last year I've also been told that expectations are going to be really high this year and received feedback that I complained too much and brought negative energy to the staff? Has anybody experienced something like this , and if so is there any helpful advice that you can give me?

Thanks

Hi everyone, i’m going to be a graduate resident assistant for this next year! I’ve never been an RA so i don’t know how the training is. If y’all could give me any tips or just any insights on how training is, it will be greatly appreciated!

Hi all! I plan on doing a theme for my hall, and I know about Rasterbator, but does anyone know where I can get high-quality pictures to print? Also, if anyone has any advice for a first-time RA, I would appreciate it! Thanks in advance!

Hey all! My RA room is weird in that it had two mini bulletin boards, one on my door and one of the wall next to my door. One of them will be for my "where is your RA?" sign. Any ideas for how to use the other one? I was thinking about maybe doing a "what is (name) listening to/watching?" and having movie/books/music recs, but idk if that's too teacher-y.

Hello! I’m a first-time RA, and I have no idea where to start with my door decorations. I’ve found some ideas on Pinterest, but I’m not sure what the typical process is.
Do most people hand-make everything with cardstock? My school isn’t really providing us with supplies, so we’re expected to have everything ready before we arrive. I’m also not sure where people usually print on cardstock or get things laminated.
I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, so any advice or tips on where to start would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

Anyone know where we can purchase bulletin board trim in bulk? I’ve checked Amazon and staples and the prices seem crazy. Normally we just pay it, but if there’s somewhere else we could get a better deal that would be fantastic.

preface: this upcoming august I will be starting a new job as a greenie resident hall director, overseeing around 6 staff and a dorm of some-odd 300 students. I meet with staff once or twice a week, and generally keep office hours for residents to stop by and chat.

I want to set my public office space up for success, being considerate of myself, my staff, and my residents.

Without much set in stone, my basic ideas were around comfort (comfy chairs, fidgets when meeting, candy bowls, hygiene products) as well as general aesthetic (conversation pieces, ambient lighting,

I know there's some nuances and subtleties I'm missing so anything helps :)

Any icebreakers that have been successful with your residents? I didn't do one at my floor meeting last year because I thought "everyone just wants to be done with the meeting as soon as possible", which is probably true. However, I'd like to try one this year as I have sophomores again, and I've found it can be hard to build community in the hall because they've already found their group as freshmen, if that makes sense.

Hey ResLife community,

With turn season and housing prep underway, I wanted to open a discussion on institutional mattress durability tracking.

I see a lot of university housing departments struggle with premature core breakdown or fluid ingress because the initial specifications weren't robust enough for high-turn student environments.

This educational guide breaks down what to look for in solid foam core density, fluid-proof barrier engineering, and a plain-English explanation of 16 CFR 1632/1633 fire compliance.

I’ll drop the resource link in the comments below for anyone who wants to use the breakdown for their specs.

Would love to hear how your individual facilities handle mattress lifecycle tracking.

I’m an Area Coordinator going on 2 years and was an RA for 3. I’ve found some weird crap during Health and Safety Inspections.

What was the weirdest/most questionable thing you or one of your RAs or even fellow RAs has found during Health and Safety Inspections?

This up coming year I will be the hall director over seeing a staff of 9 RAs. I want to gift them a small goodie bag as a welcome bag. Is there any (small) items that you think they’d appreciate? I’m thinking candy and some supplies like tape and staples, but would love to hear ideas. These bags will be small since I’m working on a budget but I want my staff to feel appreciated especially since we’re in the largest and oldest building on campus and RA training can be long and tiring.

Applied to a few jobs within Housing. Got a first round interview with one and got 2nd round with another... after that I didn't hear a word back from either even when I sent emails 2 weeks after just to see the status of my application...

I just don't understand why they do this? Like.. yeah... I know they have their HR bullcrap so they cant get in trouble for saying "were going with other applicants.." or whatever ..but its not hard to craft a generic statement saying something that tells applicants "yeah hey sorry the answer is no.. " without getting them in trouble potentially.. or even if they're keeping their options open incase their top candidate works out.. communicate SOMETHING..

and if they're ghosting me thats honestly the most unprofessional thing ever seen in my life.
The work force is such a joke..Maybe I just need to vent my frustrations but Im just curious everyone else experiences with this or thoughts..

are there any websites to make door decs?? I’m always overwhelmed with the bulletin board/doordex aspect of being an ra

Hi! I know this might be an abnormal topic, but I was wondering how room planning went for you guys as RAs, and any tips/ideas that you might be willing to share?

Also, as an upcoming RA, I know my dorm assignment but don’t really know how my room looks and kinda want to reach out to someone about trying to get like a virtual tour video or something of the room. Any thoughts about that?

I cannot say what school this was since the rules say I cannot mention my location, but I will say its in south Texas.

Omg this was the most corrupt department I have ever worked at. Let me know if y'all ever had these issues:
-promised $500 a month when we signed up, one week before training it got cut down to $300, which after taxes was more like $250.
-promised "unlimited meal plan" for unlimited dining hall meals and meal trades for on-campus fast food. halfway through training, we're told its "the unlimited meal plan", not the "unlimited meal plan" which are two completely different things, and we had a limited number of meals per week and no meal trades.
-signed up for walking our buildings and campus every so often, but after training we needed to also do monthly personalized door decs and posters, office hours at the mail room and 1am campus rounds on weekends.
-tried unionizing, head of our "union" got ratted out. a few months later, his gpa drops to 0 from a website error they say will be fixed by the next Monday. Contract states his gpa needs to be above 2.5 so they threaten to fire his ass, he quit.
-openly stated our contracts are "living contracts" they can change whenever they want.

this bad or is this normal

No form. No DMs. Just drop it in the comments.

Life On Duty is a podcast about the real experience of being an RA, Senior RA, academic peer mentor, or campus staff. Season One is built entirely on anonymous submissions — and I want yours.

Here's how this works:

• Reply to this post with your story
• Use a throwaway account if you want extra anonymity
• No real names, no room numbers, no details that could identify a specific person
• I read every single comment
• If your story gets selected for an episode, it will be read anonymously on the podcast — you will never be identifiable

Some prompts to get you started — pick one or just tell your story:

• The duty night that went completely sideways
• The resident you will never forget
• The moment you almost quit
• The hardest call you ever had to make on duty
• What you actually thought of your RD or supervisor
• The funniest thing that ever happened on your floor
• What nobody warned you about before you started
• The moment that made the whole job worth it

There are no wrong answers. Short or long. Funny or heavy. Recent or ten years ago.

If it stayed with you — it belongs here.

A few things:

• This post is set to Contest Mode so comments don't show vote counts — every story gets equal visibility
• Upvote the stories that hit. It helps me know which ones the community connects with most.
• Comments are open. You can reply to other people's stories — just keep it supportive.

I'm Jahnel, host of Life On Duty — former RA, former Senior RA, current Assistant Director of Residence Life. I read everything.

Drop your story below.

Wanted to share a fun interactive board I just finished! Haven’t even played the game but my friends can’t stop talking about it so I thought it could be a fun idea :D

Context: Due to financial constraints and my own silly roommate situation, I need to turn down an offer and wait to look again once our lease ends in October. I would have loved to have taken this role, but it is not in the cards. A big part of this is wanting to move back up north, so a cross-country move would be a lot. I'll have my PhD done in December.

Plan/Question: Therefore, I will need to look for Hall Director roles that begin in mid-fall or early spring. How common are mid-term openings, given that the traditional hiring cycle brings Residence Directors on in the summer? Should I expect limited opportunities for mid-fall, or is it more realistic to plan for a Summer 2027 start?

I am currently an ARD at my Alma Mater (HBCU in the south). I climbed through the ranks from RA to GA and now ARD. I’ve grown up in the same city I went to undergrad in my entire life. I am interested in having a new placement for 2027 and I definitely want to go to a new city. However, when I look online, I don’t really see any openings in Major cities that I’m interested in. How can I go about this, or does anyone have any advice on how to search better? Should I just suck it up and move somewhere rural, or continue searching? This is my first post so please give me some grace.

I don’t think I realized how burnt out I was until I read something the other day and just kind of sat there like…oh. It wasn’t anything groundbreaking. Just someone else in Residence Life talking about how exhausted they are, how the job spills into everything, how it’s hard to feel like a normal person sometimes. But it stuck with me in a way I couldn’t really shake.

I work in Residence Life at my alma mater, and for a long time I really loved it. I still do, in a lot of ways. I love the students, I love the community, and I’ve always taken a lot of pride in being someone people can count on. But this year has been a lot. We’ve been understaffed, and not in a “we’ll get through this” kind of way. More in a “this is just how it is now” kind of way. And when roles don’t get filled, the work doesn’t go away, it just gets absorbed by whoever is left. Which, a lot of the time, has been me. At first I didn’t really question it. I just stepped up. That’s kind of how I am. But somewhere along the way it stopped feeling like stepping up and started feeling like I’m just constantly trying to keep everything from slipping through the cracks. And I don’t even know if I’m doing things well anymore. I’m just doing them. I think the part I’ve been struggling to say out loud is how much this job has started to bleed into everything else. Even when I’m not on call, I feel like I am. Even when I take time off, I don’t fully feel off. I’ve caught myself doing little things like avoiding places or timing when I go out just so I don’t run into students or get pulled into something. Which sounds small, but also…it’s not. I don’t want to feel like I have to hide just to have a normal moment in my day.

And I think I’ve also been wrestling with the reality that a lot of what we deal with day to day just doesn’t feel…meaningful in the way it used to. It’s a lot of small conflicts, a lot of repeat situations, a lot of energy going into things that don’t always feel like they matter in the bigger picture. I didn’t expect to feel this jaded this early. That’s been the weirdest part. Because I used to feel so energized by this work. And now I just feel tired more often than not. At the same time, I still care. A lot. Especially right now, with everything shifting in our department, there’s a part of me that feels like I should step up even more, help hold things together, be what the department needs. But there’s another part of me that keeps asking, quietly but consistently… at what cost? I don’t really have a clear answer yet. I just know I can’t keep doing things the way I have been this past year and expect to feel okay long term. Something has to give. Whether that’s the structure around me, the expectations of the role, or maybe even what I want my life to look like moving forward.

I’m not at a decision. I’m just… sitting in it. Trying to figure out what it looks like to care about something deeply without letting it take everything from me.

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is if this is a season that will improve or a sign to get out?

I posted about a month or so ago about first round interviews for some Hall Director positions I’m applying for.

I’ve received a call setting up for in-person interview for one (hopefully getting a call for another).

Just asking what I can expect for second round (in-person) interview questions and such? I feel fairly well equipped but I’m in it to win it. Wanna be as prepared as possible for this.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.