Residential Leader Reflection

As a Residential Leader, I wanted to expand on my skills within the field of education. I

wanted to learn the mechanisms that help students understand, communicate and perform
successfully to reach their academic and life goals. My experience as a Residential Leader has
been challenging and demanding, but also enjoyable and rewarding. I have developed skills, such
as team cooperation, community building and relationship construction that have helped me be
successful as a Residential Leader for first-year students. In my experience, I have applied
several skills from major and have been able to apply the skills that I have learned to the world in
general. I think accepting the position as a Residential Leader was one of the best decisions I
could have ever made.
Within my psychology disciple, we take a course on educational psychology that is all
about how people interact and learn inside and out of the classroom. I will never forget what the
professor said in the first lecture of the course. She said, They wont care what you know until
they know that you care. Because of this, I tried to go the extra mile within my hall. I made
efforts to knock and doors and realized who I had not seen in while to go and reconnect with
them. With the introverted personalities I had, I went to their rooms to have conversations and
pushed them to explore new things on campus. I wanted my residents to know that I cared and to
know that I was one they could count on in rough times.
Another course that I employed within my experience as a Residential Leader was
Psychology of Learning. Psych of Learning focuses on how we encode, store and retrieve
information within our memory. Knowledge that I gained from this class was effective methods
of studying and effective encoding plans of new information. As a Residential Leader, I gave this
information to residents by letting them know that it is better to take study breaks, to vary their

study environment and to encode the information using the different senses. A success story was
with a resident that was making a 26 in a history class because there was only a midterm and a
final. She was stressing out over the final and I gave her those few tips and she was able to get to
bring that 26 up to a C in the class. This success shows me how my discipline was applied in my
experience as a Residential Leader.
My Psych 1100 course came into play with the added stresses that being a Residential
Leader comes with. The most skills that I gained from this course was time management. Seeing
that at least six hours of my week were taken up by Residential Leader responsibilities, I knew
that I would have to organize my time to be most effective. Seeing that other things came with
being a Residential Leader, such as hall preparation time, resident interaction, and community
bonding events, I knew that a lot of my time would be stretched and I would have to be creative
in how I would balance my school work, organizations, internship and Residential Leader
responsibilities. I think that my Psych 1100 course gave me a great way of breaking out my time
and understanding the balance that was needed within my life.
Outside of my disciple, there have been several courses that have attributed to my success
as a Residential Leader. Having a mathematics minor, I have been able to help my residents with
their math homework and introduced them to new ways of looking at a problem. One way this
has helped me is my pedagogy. Seeing that I want to go into education in secondary
mathematics, it has given me teaching tips and learning how older students learn and understand
math and the systems behind the different problems.
Another set of courses that have helped me tremendously have been my English courses.
We have to write concise, but detailed interactions for each resident periodically. Because I have
hundreds of conversations with each resident, I have to interpret what are the most important

aspects of a residents life and fill those into the appropriate columns. Within the concepts from
English like main idea and and key concepts. Another thing that my English courses taught me
was how to understand what a resident is actually saying when they are talking with you. Some
have stories from about their lives that have underlying meanings that we have to interpret.
These interpretations can help us better our tactics to improve the students lives within the
residence hall.
Professionalism was one huge skills that helped me through my experience as a
Residential Leader. Working the front desk, answering phone calls, interacting with parents and
conversing with administration all hinge themselves on the skill of professionalism. Especially
on move in day, I had to present a welcoming face that parents and students could approach and
feel confident that I am a professional and know how to conduct hall procedures. Another skill
that I learned through this position was community building. I learned how to connect a set of
people in order to cohabitate and work together in order to survive their first year of college.
Having community events and pushing my residents to interact through hall activities brought
my hall together and helped most of them get through their first year of being away from home.
My academics and skill set combined to make me successful in my Residential Leader
experience. These came together to help my residents understand that I was a person to talk to.
Several of them came to my room when they were upset and helped us both reach a consensus
about hall operations and fun things to do within the hall. Also, when I did have to interact with
parents and administration, I was able to speak correctly and intelligently and be able to get my
point across clearly. My education and skillset came together make me successful in this
position.

When I first came in to this position, I was excited about having my door open
constantly, being in the hall all the time, going to the dining hall with everyone and having a
diverse population of residents. Well, life happened. The first thing that changed was that I was
handed a hall of all girls. Being the only guy on the hall, it was sometimes difficult for me to
connect with them on female things. Also, I had to realize that I still have homework and other
responsibilities to were I cannot have my door open when I am studying for a test or working on
a presentation. I also struggled with not having contact with some of my residents. These ghost
residents were barely there during Transition Week and never live in their room. All of these
assumptions and changed that came with the position shifted my tactics on how I connected with
the students and pushed me to find new ways to connect with the students.
I think that the Residential Leader experience has broadened my horizons on people in
general. I understand now that people have their own life stories and struggle with different
things within their lives. I lengthened my patience and made me able to connect with students.
Going into education, this position helped me develop my educational philosophy and how I
want to operate my classroom and eventually my school. I think every student should have an
opportunity, such the Residential Leader experience, to help understand other people and expand
their boundaries to accommodate for other people. This experience definitely aided me in my
global perceptions of education, community and people in general.