Community Advisor
Date: August 2018 - May 2019
Competencies: Values lv. 2,3&4, Teams lv. 2&3
Competencies: Values lv. 2,3&4, Teams lv. 2&3
Summary
My second year at MNSU, I was hired as a Community Advisor (CA) in the Preska Residence Community. I was the CA for Hall L4, which was home to primarily freshman students who resided in semi-suite rooms. As part of my job, I would help put on the weekly WOW (What's on Wednesday, plan and execute floor meetings and events, create door decorations and monthly bulletin boards, and participate in overnight on-call duty and scheduled rounds. Though it was a very hectic year between my academic and work priorities, pulling me to the very limits of myself, I grew a lot and learned a great deal about the way I lead, deal with conflict, and best handle stress
My second year at MNSU, I was hired as a Community Advisor (CA) in the Preska Residence Community. I was the CA for Hall L4, which was home to primarily freshman students who resided in semi-suite rooms. As part of my job, I would help put on the weekly WOW (What's on Wednesday, plan and execute floor meetings and events, create door decorations and monthly bulletin boards, and participate in overnight on-call duty and scheduled rounds. Though it was a very hectic year between my academic and work priorities, pulling me to the very limits of myself, I grew a lot and learned a great deal about the way I lead, deal with conflict, and best handle stress
Reflection
After two weeks of training, my first day as a Community Advisor – move-in day – was both scary and exciting. I got to meet my residents! After a great initial welcome week, we settled into the school year.
Partway through first semester, my coworkers and I did a very cool activity during an all-staff meeting. We were separated into groups of 4 Community Advisors each, and told to go through a survival scenario where you ranked each item in order of what would be most important for survival. My group immediately took a democratic approach, talking through each item’s importance and voting on problem items (Teams lv. 3), ending up in 2nd place. After the activity was complete, we found out that we had been separated into groups by our color personality types, and my group was all ‘gold’ colors, which are very organized, prepared, and structured people. It was very interesting to see how different groups had set up their decision-making process – how some ways worked better than others, and by proxy, some personality types did better than others.
Later that semester, I was reflecting with my coworker, Emily. We chatted about how as ‘gold’ color personality types, we were very good at the administrative parts of the CA position, but not quite as proficient at the social aspects (Values lv. 2). I was not a super sociable person, and sometimes it was difficult to get natural interactions with my residents. We also chatted about how some of our coworkers were the exact opposite of us – good at being social and friendly, but not as great at the administrative aspects (Teams lv. 2). I realized then that, even when it was difficult to work with the ‘orange’ coworkers, together we could do much better than either of us could do apart (Teams lv. 3).
In 2nd semester, I was really struggling with my floor. They were being recluses and seemed to try to avoid me – at least it felt that way to me. I was learning the hard way that by trying to be their friend and their CA, I ended up being neither, leaving everybody in a weird, gray area (Values lv. 3). It was not the best route I could have gone, but once I corrected course and became more their CA than anything else, things started to get better. They did not seem to absolutely love me still, but I had regained a position as the ‘leader’ of the floor (Values lv. 4), which made it easier to uphold the duties of my job.
After my year as a Community Advisor, I’d learned a lot about myself. Though I had improved my conflict management and confrontation skills immensely, there was still a lot to improve on (Values lv. 2). I learned a lot about how to best manage my time and schedule, what I like and dislike in my superior’s leadership styles, and that I very much prefer a job that deals more with information than people.
After two weeks of training, my first day as a Community Advisor – move-in day – was both scary and exciting. I got to meet my residents! After a great initial welcome week, we settled into the school year.
Partway through first semester, my coworkers and I did a very cool activity during an all-staff meeting. We were separated into groups of 4 Community Advisors each, and told to go through a survival scenario where you ranked each item in order of what would be most important for survival. My group immediately took a democratic approach, talking through each item’s importance and voting on problem items (Teams lv. 3), ending up in 2nd place. After the activity was complete, we found out that we had been separated into groups by our color personality types, and my group was all ‘gold’ colors, which are very organized, prepared, and structured people. It was very interesting to see how different groups had set up their decision-making process – how some ways worked better than others, and by proxy, some personality types did better than others.
Later that semester, I was reflecting with my coworker, Emily. We chatted about how as ‘gold’ color personality types, we were very good at the administrative parts of the CA position, but not quite as proficient at the social aspects (Values lv. 2). I was not a super sociable person, and sometimes it was difficult to get natural interactions with my residents. We also chatted about how some of our coworkers were the exact opposite of us – good at being social and friendly, but not as great at the administrative aspects (Teams lv. 2). I realized then that, even when it was difficult to work with the ‘orange’ coworkers, together we could do much better than either of us could do apart (Teams lv. 3).
In 2nd semester, I was really struggling with my floor. They were being recluses and seemed to try to avoid me – at least it felt that way to me. I was learning the hard way that by trying to be their friend and their CA, I ended up being neither, leaving everybody in a weird, gray area (Values lv. 3). It was not the best route I could have gone, but once I corrected course and became more their CA than anything else, things started to get better. They did not seem to absolutely love me still, but I had regained a position as the ‘leader’ of the floor (Values lv. 4), which made it easier to uphold the duties of my job.
After my year as a Community Advisor, I’d learned a lot about myself. Though I had improved my conflict management and confrontation skills immensely, there was still a lot to improve on (Values lv. 2). I learned a lot about how to best manage my time and schedule, what I like and dislike in my superior’s leadership styles, and that I very much prefer a job that deals more with information than people.
Artifact
Attached is a letter from my Hall Director, Taylor Bergstrom, detailing my performance - in work and leadership - throughout the year.
Attached is a letter from my Hall Director, Taylor Bergstrom, detailing my performance - in work and leadership - throughout the year.