Becoming an RA means taking on a host of new responsibilities, not just the standard floor events and room checks, but also connecting with a diverse groups of students as they adjust to a new living environment.

This can be even more difficult than the “official” job duties, and many new RA’s struggle to make any connection with their awesome new floormates.

“Doofuses, dorks, nerds, spazs, those kids love the heck outta me,” Abel 4 RA Clarissa Englels said. “But I’m just afraid that I’m losing ground with the non-dweeb students,” .

Clarissa expected her floor to be sated by the new hall decor and free root beer for at least a few months but she’s already running out of ways to connect with her assigned floormates. A transition to a “Big Bang Theory” floor theme is planned but will not take effect until second semester, a delay that could lead to even more disconnect between Clarissa and an increasingly “gnarly group of hip kids.”

“These new kids are just too radical,” she said. “It’s always been so easy to relate to the floor nerds, show them my Tom Baker ‘Dr. Who’ tapes, drop a “the cake is a lie” here and there, but this batch, I just don’t think I can impress them anymore.”

This problem isn’t limited to Abel 4. All across campus, kids that enjoy kicking back and longboarding down by the industrial park are becoming less and less dependant on their RA’s kind smile to guide them through the first-year transition.

“We just can’t crank out chic RA’s anymore,” Sam Fulton, Harper-Schramm-Smith resident director, said. “Our RAs get Settlers of Catan, residents stop playing board games; our RAs throw free pizza parties, all of a sudden the awesome residents eat soylent. These kids are laughing at memes my staffers even heard of yet.

“This isn’t a war,” she said. “It’s a massacre.”