Sunday, July 21, 2013

Clark - Week 5 - Housing and Residence Life, MUW

Activities:
  • Attended the Housing portion of Orientation
  • Assisted parents and students in the Housing office
  • Went with Sirena to show some students their rooms
  • Sent out final Housing letters
  • Prepared Housing brochures to send out next week
  • Confirmed all of the room arrangements and roommates
  • Adjusted and assigned roommates to those without room assignments yet
  • Helped to prepare an apartment for a visiting faculty member


Reflection:

This week, we spent the majority of the week adjusting housing assignments. Something that has been very interesting for me to see is that at the W, they have rolling Housing assignments. I am unsure if this is the way it is handled at State, but since the W does the assignments by hand, I would have figured that they would have a cut-off date to ensure that they have time to assign all the housing requests.

Another interesting thing that I learned about the differences between a large and a small school is the size of the Orientation sessions. Sirena had asked me to come on Friday in addition to the other two days that I normally go to help work in the office since several staff members were out of the office. I was expecting it to be crazy in the office, but I was pleasantly surprised when it was not.

One of the major perks at a smaller school, to me, appears to be the one on one relationships that Directors can have with students. Last week, we had two students coming in requesting to see the exact room that they would be staying in for the fall/spring semesters. Sirena and I were able to take them to their specific fall/spring assigned room so that they could get an idea of the size of the room. I think that this makes the W really unique and special from other schools. I cannot imagine that at a school like State, that it would be possible to show the exact room that the student would be staying in.

My time at the W has really shown me the difference of being a generalist and a specialist. Sirena truly is a generalist at the W. She deals with International Students, the Counseling Center, judicial issues, ordering furniture, fixing problems with the residence halls, setting up rooms for visiting students and faculty, among many other things. I think this has definitely allowed me to see why being a generalist is necessary at a smaller school, and why it is difficult to be a specialist there.

Hope everyone is enjoying his or her experiences! Have a great week!


Brittany

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