Pearls of Wisdom: Nice work if you can get it

Even before Felicity hooked up with Noel, the life of a college RA was seen as a privileged position. Holding kids’ heads over toilets, counseling heartbroken residents through dormcest break-ups, and knowing every last bit of house gossip — what could be more glamorous than that?

In just a few short hours (or, if you have no class on Fridays and get off to a late start, just a few short hours ago), “regular decision” RA applications for the 2007-2008 school year are due. If you’ve managed to miss all of the emails and flyers and Daily ads that have blanketed campus for the past few months, you can forget turning in both a hard and a soft copy today; your chance to irrevocably alter the lives of the Class of 2011 and/or the face of Residential Education has passed. If, however, you’ve attended your required info session, gathered letters of recommendation, and subtly conveyed your many interpersonal strengths in your essays, you have just joined the illustrious ranks of RA wannabes. With an application process that rivals the Google job-hunt gauntlet (they often have five rounds of interviews, not two) and a reward that lands you not in a free Whole Foods-like mecca but in Stern Dining, it’s only natural to wonder: What’s in it for the applicant?

Of equal importance, at least for those who believe in asking not what their university can do for them, but what they can do for their university: Do you have what it takes?

Like many of you, I remember moving in to my freshman dorm like it was yesterday. As I dragged my suitcase toward what I hoped was the front of Larkin, a group of matching T-shirted people I’d never seen before yelled my name at the top of their lungs. While the others jumped around like lunatics on speed, one of them ran toward me, flailing his arms and offering to help me with my bags. I, logically, stopped dead in my tracks. These are the Herculean individuals who, even at 24, I cannot rival in age or maturity.

Between the four of them, my freshman RAs covered every Stanford stereotype. In Upper West, Nate, the former class president, reigned supreme. Born in a suit and tie but equally at ease in basketball shorts, Nate was virtually engaged to his high school sweetheart who, conveniently, was a student at Santa Clara. Tall, dark and handsome, he landed a top consulting job in November of his senior year (long before I knew what McKinsey, Bain or Mercer meant) and had a close group of drawmates who were featured in Stanford Magazine for some impressive feat or another. From the get-go, every girl on his hallway gave the First Lady glares; in May, one “accidentally” gave her a black eye, but even that was not enough to destroy perfection — when Nate proposed at the top of some gorgeous, snow-covered mountain during our senior year, the story, and its verification of his Superman status, made the rounds. Wherever his white-picket-fenced, three bedroom two bathroom home is, I’m sure he’s perfectly happy overseeing its house meetings.

Of course, not every RA so closely resembles the pre-fallen Gavin Newsom. A far cry and two hallways away from Mr. Together, Mike was the Stanford bubble’s poster child — with an emphasis on the latter. A Stanford Sierra Camp counselor and Band member, Mike had more energy than the average second grader — which is good, because he’s now teaching a classroom full of them. As an RA, he organized a four-square tournament and gleefully accompanied us to Chuck E. Cheese, tequila-filled Camelback in tow. True to Stanford-loving form, Mike stuck around for a coterm and, last I checked, still lives with a group of fellow SSC/Band alumni at the Executive Ranch of Ridiculousness, a slightly older version of a freshman dorm (without the RAs and alcohol policy, obviously).

Perhaps because their master key-wielding male counterparts were so visible — or perhaps, as a freshman girl, I was acutely aware of the Y chromosomes suddenly living in close proximity — my female RAs were less notable. Kat, whose converted RF-apartment had a kitchen and private bathroom, seemed both old and wise enough to live in a legit home; if I remember correctly, she knew how to use the oven, too (something I have yet to master). Her room in Lower West was the farthest away from mine (distance is all relative — there will come a day when, in comparison to NYC, Boston, and LA, even Suites sounds close), but in my mind’s eye, she was a diligent student and generally easy-going girl as well as a future Martha Stewart.

And then there was Jess, who lived down the hall from me. If Mike was in it to relive certain aspects of the freshman experience, Jess was drawn to several others. She quickly became BFF with one of the girls downstairs. Then she hooked up with a freshman. Who had previously hooked up with her BFF. Talk about going directly to the source for your dorm gossip.

Speaking of RA hook-ups, which are generally frowned upon by the University, there are always the stories that make it outside the sandstone walls of their own dorms. My freshman year, it was a boy in Branner and not one but TWO of his female RAs. In all fairness to him, he actually dated one of them for a very long time. In fact, they just got married. Long before he popped the question, I asked him about his interest in older women, specifically his RAs. His response? “I like dating women who are smarter than me.” I’m still interested in the Freudian aspects related to authority figures.

Presidents, poster children, Martha Stewarts and Mrs. Robinsons aside, it was only years after being voted most likely to be a Larkin RA (by a landslide 75% of the end-of-the-year, fill-in-the-blank poll) that I realized how hard it was to be, and become, an RA. Assuming you make it through the lengthy online application, the info sessions, letters of recommendation and the interviews with RFs, there are all kinds of three AM crises and meticulously planned dorm events — not to mention your own classes and former social life — to handle. Even Row RAs — who have no hands (or heads) to hold, a budget that can include alcohol-related events and an open kitchen — receive a fair amount of responsibility in exchange for their slightly lower salary.

If you can swing it, though, there’s a perk to RA-ship that not even Google’s free laundry can rival: To this day, there’s a special interaction that happens when my RA friends run into their former residents. Trust me, it’s not about the paycheck.

In addition to being a grad student, Lisa is currently the real-world version of an RA: She teaches eighth grade English at Menlo School. Email her at lisame@stanford.edu.