I was a community adviser last year. Virtually everyone at NIU has had some exposure to CAs. Perhaps they were the person who ruined your fun and got you in trouble your first year here.

Maybe they were the person who helped you in your darkest hour when you thought you were all alone at college. They could just be a person on your floor you see from time to time and tells you what’s up.

Being that person – the CA – is not easy. Some people can’t cut it and quit; most stick it out and work through their difficulties. As a CA, you see the very best and the very worst of people. You see your residents when they’re excited about something positive happening in their life, bouncing off the walls, overcome with joy.

Sometimes, you also see your residents being taken away on a stretcher on the verge of death because they drank too much or had a medical emergency. When something bad happens to a residents, it often falls to the CA to make sure that person will be OK.

Being a CA can even be dangerous – one person killed in the Virginia Tech shooting was a CA helping one of his residents.

The stress of this job can bring you to tears, but the rewards are lifelong memories. And all of what I’ve just mentioned is virtually unknown to all but the select few who have chosen to give a year of their lives in service of the residence halls.

When you go through training for this job, you spend a lot of time talking about diversity and respecting people, in spite of their differences. But in this job, you will necessarily face people living up to all the worst stereotypes that are out there.

It’s a very hard thing to not let that get to you after awhile – and it’s even harder to not let it affect the way you treat people.

When I signed up to be a CA, it was for two reasons: The room and board were an easy way to defer some of my education costs, and it was a chance to help people every day. When I got into the job, however, I found it was much more than that.

With the positives I signed up for also came some negatives – lots of paperwork, unnecessary developmental training, mandatory meetings made with no consideration of your schedule, and an expectation that this job would come before virtually everything else in your life.

The negatives are what really get to most of us. Whenever a resident violates hall or judicial policy, CAs are supposed to document it. There are times when it’s just not worth writing the paperwork – more often than not, if a CA lets you off for something, it’s probably because of this.

We also have to organize programs for our floors. This involves writing up a program proposal, having it approved, running the program, passing out evaluations for the program, and filling out a program summary report. It’s a lot of extra work and eventually residents get sick of filling out evaluations.

Besides, with all the evaluations we take for everything we do, who really takes the time to give thoughtful and insightful feedback? Like many aspects of the job it consumes a lot of time.

Being a CA also makes great demands on your social life. I never had a curfew until I became a CA. For the first time, I had to be home by 2 a.m. The theory goes something like, “To be a good CA, you need to sleep on your floor and be there between 2 and 7 a.m.”

Sometimes CAs have even less freedom. Certain weekends are known as “closed,” which means CAs are required to be in the building at all times with the exception of two three-hour periods we can be out. We’re not on duty, we don’t respond to pages, we don’t have to do anything.

We just have to be there.

CAs who are younger than 21 are expected not to drink – ever – and CAs who are older than 21 are expected to never be drunk in front of their residents. It’s not a realistic expectation and one that seems bound to be broken.

While CAs are largely appreciated by our superiors, sometimes our residents don’t see the same thing. They might only remember that time they got written up for drinking in their room while smoking pot and blasting their stereo – because it’s the CA’s fault that you made a bad decision.

And although our superiors may appreciate us, our opinions are not always heard by the people above us. Sometimes CAs have to do stuff that seems to defy common logic without any explanation as to why – and somehow that’s just part of the job.

So, as we begin a new year, take time to appreciate your CA. They’re going to put up with more than you’ll ever know, and many of them will give themselves physically and emotionally, with little expected in return.

Hopefully, you’ll be a better person for what they’ve done.

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