By Noel Ceriani<\/p>\n\n\n\n
UNIVERSITY CITY, SHARJAH \u2013 Residential halls at the American University of Sharjah employ a total of 32 resident assistants for both men and women\u2019s dorms. But what do they actually do and what are the benefits of this job?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy responsibility is to create an environment that\u2019s comfortable and feels like home,\u201d said Resident Assistant Maria Frazao, \u201ckeeping in mind that people are far from home so they might miss their family and friends. We are in charge of making you not feel alone, especially with COVID, we send texts and we have Zoom calls with residents.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Frazao added that they also do events for the community, decorate the residential halls with posters, and work in the front desk as the supervisor\u2019s assistant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every two weeks, each resident assistant must write a report on his or her interaction with students, the problems they faced, and general feedback for the dorms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are activities every month in the dorms with different themes. January\u2019s theme was coronavirus prevention and February\u2019s was about mental health and wellbeing. Each resident assistant hosts one activity for fun and one for self-development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEach activity is about something that helps the residents. This month I chose a self-care event and mental health related event,\u201d said Frazao. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Women\u2019s Complex Manager Abigail Smith said to become a resident assistant students must submit an application, go through an interview and have lived on campus for at least one semester. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI applied and had to do five essay questions, each of 100 to 150 words,\u201d said Resident Assistant Dana Maalouf. \u201cThey are about the amount of people you know, how you interact with people, and if you\u2019re outgoing and social. If so, you could get shortlisted for an interview which goes more into more detail of these questions.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith added that once students are chosen, they work for two semesters at a time and are compensated with a free single room as well as skills and experiences that they can take to their future careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe dorms being free was beneficial for my parents, especially since the university is not cheap and I have a sibling who goes to another university,\u201d added Maalouf. \u201cI feel like I make my parents proud and it makes me happy that I get to help people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Noel Ceriani UNIVERSITY CITY, SHARJAH \u2013 Residential halls at the American University of Sharjah employ a total of 32 resident assistants for both men and women\u2019s dorms. But what do they actually do and what are the benefits of this job? \u201cMy responsibility is to create an environment that\u2019s comfortable and feels like home,\u201d said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3038,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[33,32,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-3037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-campus-news","8":"tag-aus","9":"tag-campus","10":"tag-community"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}