Donglei Li, Resident Advisor

By Olivia Conroy--Oneonta, NY

The job as a Resident Advisor is one of the most highly coveted jobs on campus. Despite this, many students see RA’s as pests who get you in trouble, but to residents of RA Donglei in Curtis Hall, an RA is someone you can go to for help and someone you can befriend.  For RA Donglei, choosing to follow this path was one influenced by her Resident Advisor her first year here at Oneonta.  Being an international student, it is exciting for Donglei to have this opportunity to learn more about American culture.  In China, there is no such thing as resident advisors, so this is one more way for her to immerse herself into the culture.  However the biggest reason is the hope of making new friendships.  This is one of her favorite things about being an RA.  Getting to know new people is something Donglei loves and this job helps her achieve that.  

 

photo curtesy of Donglei Li

Being an RA comes with many responsibilities.  Besides the obvious making door tags and bulletin boards,  RA's have cage hours, hourly rounds and nights where they are on duty.  Along with this, SUNY Oneonta just implemented a plan to created more of a community between students living near each other.  Many students don't realize how much effort their RA really puts into making your hall a community.  

Donglei's Door Tag

Current resident Door Tags

The most unique thing about Donglei is that she puts effort in to getting to know every single one of her residents.  In the above picture, she made door tags based on what we like.  For example Katie loves music so her door tag was focused around music.  

If everyone was lucky enough to have an RA as wonderful as Donglei, I'm sure the perception of them would be much different.