Resident Advisor
Creighton University — Department of Student Life
Thirty first-year students on one floor, through their first year away from home. Half the job is building a community people want to be part of. The other half is 2am rounds, conduct situations, and the report that gets written afterward.
Results
30First-year residents
Responsible for 30 first-year residents through their transition to university
50+Attendance, collaborative events
Grew events from a dozen of my own residents to 50+ across the building
Rehired for a second year, continuing through senior year
The problem
Thirty first-year students, most of them away from home for the first time, land on the same floor without knowing each other. The first weeks set the tone for the whole year. Left alone, a floor stays a place people sleep.
The part I care most about is the difference between mattering and marginality: whether a student believes anyone notices what they accomplish. That is not something a policy handbook produces. It comes from making the first move and caring for the whole person.
Overview
The visible half is community. Door decorations for every resident, floor events like Friendsgiving and ice skating, and trips to a haunted house, plus collaborating with RAs on other floors. Something planned for a dozen of my own residents ends up drawing fifty or more across the building.
The other half is on-call work. Overnight shifts, weekend rounds, conduct situations that have to be handled with integrity, and roommate conflicts. Over one academic break, when the building was nearly empty, I found two people in the hall who did not belong. I moved out of sight and called Public Safety rather than confronting them, then swept the rooms for signs of theft once it was clear. All of it ends in documentation other people rely on.
Gallery(7)
First day of the academic year, held up by my floor. Every door decoration I made across the year. Friendsgiving potluck meal. Haunted house trip with residents. Ice skating trip with residents. My residents set up a piñata for my birthday. Unique responsibilities — babysitting fish.
Related work
Other work that used the most skills in common with this one.
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- +3
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A seven-month undergraduate research project on when apiculture can contribute to sustainable rural development in Peru. I was responsible for the field-data structure the project runs on, interviewed beekeepers and institutions in Spanish across eleven apiaries, and independently developed its bee tourism research track.
14 Field interviews conducted in Spanish
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- SQL & Database Design
- Advanced Excel
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A full academic year with Creighton’s Analytics and Institutional Research office. The brief: pull institutional data with Oracle SQL Developer against ad hoc requests from campus stakeholders, then build the visualizations and statistical analysis that turn it into something a non-technical audience can act on.
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Jul 2025 – Present