Western<\/a> after listening to her sister\u2019s experience as one at Park Hill University.<\/p>\n\u201cIt was the idea that I could become involved with campus life and helping others,\u201d Bertram said. \u201cI enjoy living on campus, where people can come to me with issues that they have, or they come to me just to start a new relationship, to get to know me better.\u201d<\/p>\n
She claims that her job as an RA can be very rewarding, due to the amount and quality of relationships she has with her residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have some of the same residents I had last year, with a few new ones this year,\u201d Bertram said. \u201cI\u2019m on the second floor of Vaselakos Hall, which is the International Floor, and I\u2019m thrilled to meet all the internationals that we get every year and just talk to them and learn about their cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although she was able to adapt to the RA lifestyle, Bertram says that the worst part about the job are duty nights; more specifically, duty weekends.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose can drain you sometimes,\u201d Bertram said. \u201cEspecially when people are having fun against residential life policies. RAs have to stay up late, go out on rounds and you might have to answer the duty phone and walk out in the middle of the night in your pajamas to resolve a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bertram says that she has had to be on several police reports due to residential situations. She\u2019s also had to call a few paramedics to campus.<\/p>\n
Despite the ups and downs that an RA can deal with at Western, Bertram still believes that this is one of her favorite jobs she\u2019s ever had.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a great feeling. I\u2019m basically someone who can be highlighted as who you want to have a desirable friendship with,\u201d Bertram said. \u201cLike I said before, it\u2019s rewarding in the fact that I can meet new people, create new relationships with them and help them out in any way, and I get to do all of this as a job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By: Lance Lawton Handling around 40 students in a residential life hall while studying for classes can sound very challenging, and Rachel Bertram felt the pressure her first semester as a resident assistant (RA). \u201cLast fall, it was horrible,\u201d Bertram […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[171],"tags":[414,415,416,417],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3971"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3971"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4183,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3971\/revisions\/4183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}