NACURH & BEYOND
OVER THE MOO’N
TRANSLATING YOUR NACURH EXPERIENCE BY ELIZABETH GIER, MACURH REGIONAL NRHH ADVISOR Who has been asked, “what do you actually do?” or “why are you involved in that organization?” and then struggle to be able to describe to your best ability just exactly the experiences and opportunities you have as a student leader within the residence halls? I believe, more often than not, that as student leaders in the halls, we struggle to be able to describe just exactly what we learn and how we develop as leaders of tomorrow.
Most often, the students who choose to start their leadership journey with residence life, are the people that our new students meet first on campus. That impact and impression you make on those incoming students is sometimes a deal breaker for the overall student’s experience. Believe it or not, they will remember that moment of contact for days, weeks, months and maybe years to come. As student leaders, you learn: conflict management, crisis management, team development, communication skills, and hopefully personal identity development. There is more that you learn, but these are just a few, but how do you take those and display them outside of your role in residence life? How can you correctly articulate all those attributes?
It starts with realizing that you have gained something out of being a student leader. As a student leader, we give to so many people but we often forget to reflect on our experiences and how we have impacted others. Once you start reflecting, start writing down those incidents that you encountered during those times. The moments where you had that awkward conversation with that one student and then watching them grow and mature and change their worlds. The moments where you might have had a difficult conversation and maybe it didn’t go so well, but how did you learn from that? Reflect on those things and write them down. Ask your mentors and peers about initiatives or experiences that you’ve had with them that you might have forgotten about. Once you’ve reflected, start articulating that narrative to your peers, family and friends. Start telling them about those experiences and opportunities. Talk about those growth opportunities in your new role, show how you’ve learned from those tough times that you reflected over, be that example to others that you wish you had. It is difficult to explain to others who have never experienced leadership roles within residence life all that you experience and the opportunities you have for professional and personal growth. Once you start reflecting and sharing that narrative out loud, if will be easier to translate that into your future roles you will have in your life.
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