Living in residence first year there are so many roles- floor fellows, floor reps, Hall Council’s many different roles as well as Inter-Rez Council’s roles. To provide a little insight into the mysterious life of council members and what it’s actually like to keep the residence in order, I talked to Lynn Lee, a floor rep at La Citadelle, to better understand these roles that make first year students’ everyday life in their first year (far) away from home so much simpler.
Catherine Ke for Her Campus (HC McGill): Hey Lynn, thank you for letting me interview you about your experience! Can you tell us a little bit about you?
Lynn Lee (LL): Yeah, of course! I’m a U0 Arts student (I just declared my major as Linguistics) currently living in La Citadelle! I’m from Surrey, British Columbia, which is a city just outside Vancouver. I’m also small enough to stand on the ledges by the windows that we have in La Citadelle, and for reference I only know one other person who does fit.
HC McGill: What are your responsibilities as a floor rep?
LL: The job is basically in the title. As a floor rep, I’m supposed to act as a liaison between my floors and Hall Council, as well as working with my Floor Fellow to create floor bonding events. Other than that, I just work as part of a team on Hall Council, helping plan events and other activities for my residence.
HC McGill: What’s the job like, did you like it?
LL: The position isn’t too intense, in my experience, although it really depends on how much work you put into it. Hall Council meetings are one hour, once a week, so it isn’t too time consuming, unless we have a deadline to meet in planning events. I did like being a part of Hall Council! I do feel like I wasn’t able to engage with the other students on my floor really well, and floor bonding events on my floor did have a low turnout a lot of the time. But other than that, it was cool to meet and work with the other students who were on Hall Council with me. Unlike the other positions, floor reps are chosen, but I personally really didn’t feel any kind of power hierarchy, so it was super easy to contribute at meetings and get on sub-committees for our events.
HC McGill: Were you excited in the beginning when you first got the job, if yes, why?
LL: I was excited when I first got the position! Coming straight from high school, where I hadn’t gotten involved as much as I would have liked to, I was excited to be a floor rep and meet some of the students I’d be living with for 8 months. By nature, I love meeting new people, so I was excited to have the chance to interact with people that I might not have otherwise.
HC McGill: What was your favourite thing about being a floor rep that you couldn’t do otherwise?
LL: I think my favourite thing about being a floor rep was being able to really see the results of what we worked to achieve. I found that the general atmosphere of Hall Council was really laid-back, and it wasn’t super bureaucratic, so if we really wanted to implement something we could make it happen without too many obstacles. It was really fulfilling to be able to plan, for example, a Halloween party from the beginning to the end.
HC McGill: What’s one thing that made your hard work all worth it?
LL: It’s not a big thing, but I thought it was really rewarding when people actually showed up to our events. Even if it wasn’t a ton of people that came, it was still nice to see other students from our rez show up and see what we were doing. I’ve had some people tell me they liked a certain event, and it was very satisfying to see that my effort wasn’t going towards nothing.
HC McGill: What’s one thing that made everything hard?
LL: I found it hard to get people on my floors engaged. Not a lot of people came to floor bonding events, and so I didn’t get to know too many people. It would have been nice if I knew more people on my floors, so that’s one thing that I kind of struggled with.
HC McGill: What was your favourite event that council hosted, or the best thing that you think council has done?
LL: I think my favourite event that council hosted was the Halloween party, maybe because I helped plan it. The Halloween party was planned really quickly and kind of on a time crunch, but despite that it managed to exceed our expectations. It was our first party that we hosted, and I think it was a good confidence booster for us to see all these other students from our rez show up and have (hopefully) a good time, even if they came just for the free food and drinks.
HC McGill: Now that we’re at the end of the semester, what do you think you’ll miss the most about being a floor rep, or about residence in general?
LL: Something that I’ll miss about living in residence is having so many of my friends two steps away. I got to be good friends with some of my floormates, and it became habit to go knocking on their doors anytime I wanted to. Sometimes we would just sit in the hallway talking until somebody came out and told us to be quiet, and I think that’s one thing that I’ll really miss. I’ve become so used to having a lot of my good friends one knock away, which is definitely a luxury that I won’t have when we move out at the end of this year.
Images: courtesy of the interviewee.