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A third year, movie-watching, music-listening, Computer Engineering major. Just a few words to describe Sahithi Bonala, an RA here at GTL. I had the pleasure of interviewing Ms. Bonala, and I started off our conversation with a couple basic umbrella questions about different aspects of her life. For Sahithi’s spring semester at GTL, she is taking ECE 3084, ECE 2036, ISYE 3770 (statistics), and COE 2001 (statics). She admitted that, as most undergraduate students, she isn’t quite sure what she wants to do after college. However, she does have a special interest in low level software, so she would “like to work in the realm of embedded systems, but that’s about it.” In her free time, Sahithi also likes to dance, and she has recently taken up journalism as a hobby. With that, I was on to getting to know a bit about a pretty awesome GTL RA!

When Sahithi was a sophomore, her parents didn’t want her living off campus, so she figured that the best alternative to living in an apartment with some of her friends was to become an RA. She said to me that being an RA has been a very rewarding experience, with strong friendships formed, and an uplifting community that she otherwise would not have known: “I’ve worked with freshman, transfer, and exchange students so far. Each community has something unique to offer and teach me new things.” As an RA at GTL, Sahithi is on duty twice a week, helping Karen Pierce with any tasks she may need help with. Most of the tasks she is asked to perform involve relaying information to residents, which, Sahithi says, is nice because it is not so demanding. I proceeded to ask her if there are any difficulties with her tasks as an RA here, to which she responded, “We try our best to be the best resource we can be to students here. Unfortunately, since we are new here just like everyone else, it’s hard to always have answers.”

More interested in her role when Ms. Pierce wasn’t around, I asked Sahithi if she had any trouble with the residents yet. Her response started with a particularly exciting story. “On my duty night a couple of days ago, a few residents came back to Lafayette around 3am. They started fighting over something outside the building and I could hear them from my room. So I got out of bed and told them to go to their rooms.” She admits that this incident was the most action and excitement she had seen so far as an RA, to which I assured her that since it’s only week three, there were sure to be much more thrilling situations, and wished her the best of luck! After that anecdote, she told me that for the most part, everyone in Lafayette had been very friendly, and that everyone seemed to respect others in the community. “People are also pretty social in this dorm, so doors are always open and there’s usually music playing in some of the hallways, which is really nice.”

Not wanting to focus only on Sahithi’s RA stories, I changed the subject to travel, and I asked her describe her trips so far. The first weekend she was here, she visited the Loire Valley in central and southern France, noting that “[it] was a pretty neat area, we visited around 4 to 5 castles. The prettiest was the one that inspired a fairy tale. It was beautiful, but we couldn’t actually go in because someone lives in the castle now and it’s only open to visitors during certain times of the year.” Her next weekend in France, she visited Paris, which she says was amazing and full of fun times. While in Paris, she was able to explore the Musée of Orsay, which was her favorite because it was built into an old train station. Aside from typical tourist activities, her and a friend hit up a lot of different restaurants and food stands, and had a blast going through all of Paris’s little shops and boutiques. She has never traveled on her own like this before, and she’s been loving every minute of it. Sahithi cannot wait to see what the rest of the semester will bring!

Here’s a little story that Sahithi left the interview with, “Something interesting that happened is that my friend purchased a Louis Vuitton wallet while in Paris. A couple hours after she bought it, we went to Briore Dioche (a restaurant) to grab some dinner before catching our train back to Metz. We were sitting on the tables directly outside of the restaurant. We set our bags down next to us, on the side that was next to the wall. Someone sat at the table directly behind my friend and stole her newly purchased Louis Vuitton wallet. She realized it within less than five minutes. She told the Manager of the store and the security guard immediately. The manager was super helpful. He pulled up the security footage and showed us how the man had stolen her bag. He also had the security guard bring the local police to us. The police took the information and told us we should file a complaint at the police station because if we don’t then they can’t arrest the thieves. So we started heading to the station but ten minutes into the walk over the police called us to tell us they had caught the thieves. At the end of the day the thieves had been caught and and wallet was recovered as well.” Whew!

All throughout this crazy experience, anyone who was involved in getting to the bottom of the situation was extremely helpful and kind to Sahithi and her friend. She says that there are two morals to this story: You can never be too careful with your belongings (and if you think your stuff won’t be stolen in Paris, think again), and French people (and the police especially) are extremely kind and helpful, so if you’re ever in a questionable situation don’t be afraid to reach out to them as soon as possible!