Chrystina Noel

Keeping along the same line as my last post, I wanted to share with you some of my best ideas as an RA and some of the things that I learned to never try again.  I had a lot of great ideas.  I had a lot of not great ideas.  Maybe you can learn from me; however, if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably have to learn the hard way.

3 easy ways to decorating a residence hall

1. Make paper chains.  They’re fast and easy.  Just try to hang them high enough that people can’t rip them down.
2. Put coloring books in open areas.  I did this my first year when I was in an upperclassmen residence hall.  I hung completed drawings on the wall in the kitchen.  It made it feel more like home.
3. Go to the Dollar Store.  My best find ever was ghost and bat shaped notepads.  They were $1.00 each and I got 2 years worth of Halloween decorations out of them.

3 things that take a lot of work and are NOT WORTH IT when decorating a residence hall

1. Try to wrap people’s doors with wrapping paper.  It will look nice for approximately 10 minutes until somebody opens or closes a door.
2. Cut out everybody’s name ransom letter style.  Especially when you have 50 residents.
3. Cut out everybody’s name with one of those die-cutters.  Sure, cutting them out is fun.  Hanging them up is an utter pain in the butt.

3 things that take a lot of work and ARE WORTH IT when decorating a residence hall

1. Making residents Valentine’s Day mailboxes.  Yes, you should then put Valentine’s in them.  I always buy fun dip ones from Amazon.  Yes, I know I’m a card lady.  But really, we’d all rather have fun dip.
2. Making “Facebook Profiles” of all of the RAs in the building.  Daily tweets might also be cool.  Instagram photos might be cool.  You could probably even Four Square.
3. Finding something that your floor really likes and continuously updating it.  Is that concerts coming to the city?  Is that sports scores?  Is it the New York Times best sellers list?  It doesn’t matter.  Find what it is your residents like, and keep up with it.  A few of them just might appreciate it.