In 2016-17, the RA’s at Scripps College went on strike in the wake of the death by suicide of one of their peer/colleagues. The stresses of being an RA were only one factor in what happened to this student - there was much more going on, and I’m not bringing this up to imply that RA’s in general are at elevated risk of self-harm! But the detailed list of concerns and demands that these RA’s produced are instructive, I think, in highlighting some of the issues that students in these positions face. Scripps RAs Go on Strike - The Student Life
There’s a lot of context not explained here, so I’m hoping responses won’t devolve into critique of whether the authors were being reasonable or not. That isn’t really the point, and in fact the RA role has been significantly overhauled at Scripps since this occurred. I just think that it points out a lot of possible issues that a person considering an RA position may not have considered, and could help them to formulate questions about how things work on their particular campus. Issues include both practical ones (e.g. how often might I lose sleep because someone locked themselves out?) and more overarching financial ones (e.g. how will my RA compensation package interact with my financial aid package, and could this adjustment make it difficult to stop being an RA in the future?).
My daughter had a HS friend at another college who became an RA, pre-pandemic, and ended up with schedule conflicts that tilted her schedule toward asynchronous online classes. This ended up becoming problematic for her, and she had to rethink her commitment to the role.
It all really depends on the school as well as on the individual, but the more you know, the better you’ll be able to assess whether it’s a fit.