BY Cody Bradford
Staff Reporter
Cody Taylor sits at one end of the table shuffling his deck, observing his opponent’s next move. The competition goes on the offensive only to be stopped in his tracks when a single card drops onto the table and blunts the assault against Cody’s defenses.
Once he starts his own turn, however, Cody counterattacks his opponent and finishes him off for another victory at one of many “Magic: The Gathering” events he hosted as a resident assistant in Barto Hall.
Taylor, junior math major, said he became a RA because it sounded fun, and also jokingly mentioned the fact that money from the job is nice too. His primary inspiration for becoming a RA comes from the RAs he had during his freshman year.
“The RAs I had were really awesome and they liked it, so I thought it’d be cool to be an RA,” Taylor said.
Taylor said he liked his first year of being a RA while in Wendell, but this year he wanted to be in Barto to work with the freshmen. He reasoned that unlike the upperclassmen in Wendell, who seemed to have most things figured out regarding school and their majors, the freshmen would still need help figuring out some parts of college life.
“[Freshmen] will actually work with you for a little bit,” Taylor said.
Taylor runs many events including Magic the Gathering, movie nights and Super Smash Bros. tournaments. He also does educational events focusing on math topics.
“People always say they suck at math,” Taylor said. “I’ve done math-help programs and people will also stop by my door and get math help there, too.”
During Taylor’s first year as a RA in Wendell, he started “Magic: the Gathering” night and it transferred to Barto with him. He said he started the event because he had been playing the game since high school but was still learning.
“I always see people playing [Magic] in the SURC all the time, so [I] thought I could try to start something in Wendell and get some of the Wendell people out,” Taylor said.
After it ran successfully in Wendell, Taylor posted the event in Barto to see how many people would show up. Only two showed up the first night, but because they played in the second floor lounge near the laundry rooms, people saw them playing and word began to spread.
Though the event started with just Barto residents, he soon had his former residents from Wendell attending and even people from off-campus. This encouraged games to be varied, since it was not always the same people playing against each other every night.
“Magic brings people together, and people are like, ‘it’s a bunch of socially awkward people,’ but it brings socially awkward people together and it still works,” Cody said.“Once there were people, it started becoming easier, like a snowball going down a hill.”
Wendell resident Cameron Kastner said he goes to Magic Night because he gets to see his friends and meets new people all the time.
“Personally I like to win, but I also like meeting new people,” Kastner said.
Kastner also said that as a RA, Taylor was pretty laid back most of the time, but he also followed the rules.
“[Cody] doesn’t plan things for himself, he plans it for the people around him and makes sure that it fits to our schedules not his,” Barto resident Kristjan Kay said. “Like when we do magic on Mondays and Thursdays is because people are free in the club on Monday and Thursday nights.”
Taylor said his favorite part about being a RA was meeting new residents, both freshmen and upperclassmen alike, and seeing if he can help them with anything.
“Each person has something unique they can offer to everyone, and it’s always fun to find connections for that,” Taylor said.
He also said Magic night is one of his favorite events because he has a lot of fun, gets to meet new people and games are never the same twice. He also enjoys the video game nights because those bring down different groups of residents. The Super Smash Bros. tournaments get a lot of people.
Other events Taylor likes to attend are the “Pizza and Police” nights as well as the resident hall’s BBQ and field day. He also enjoys “Monday Movie Madness” because he can walk down and chill with his residents while watching movies.
Taylor said he is not majoring in math to become a teacher but rather because he is good at it. Taylor said he isn’t great at writing papers and wouldn’t do history or biology because of all the memorization. However, Cody said he is good at general mathematics and decided to get his degree in that field.
Cody is attending Central because of financial reasons and said that because of his RA and summer jobs he is able to pay off his loans so he can graduate debt free.
