_Kyleigh Polston is a freshman journalism major at MU. She is an opinion columnist who writes about student life for The Maneater._
Being a full-time college student can be exhausting, expensive and more often than not, pretty overwhelming. Yet, at the start of the semester, I found myself at the Welcome Week Resource Fair and Job Open House that was held in the MU Student Center.
The idea of adding yet another thing to my daily list of tasks seemed almost impossible, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to financially rely on my parents as much as I had in high school.
The job fair had plenty of opportunities in a variety of different places on campus, and, at this point, I hadn’t yet realized how beneficial an on-campus job would be throughout the rest of the semester.
I ended up getting a job as a Student Ambassador in the Student Success Center right on campus. I make minimum wage, and the job is neither stressful nor difficult.
The university gives us opportunities to make a small income, but they also understand that we are students and that it’s important to put academics first.
The money we make from on-campus jobs can be put towards tuition, or kept as extra spending money for when we have the time to go out and enjoy free time. On-campus jobs also are not super demanding responsibility-wise, so your free time while working allows for some much needed study time.
Most of what I do at the Student Success Center is greeting people as they walk in, giving directions to the different departments, and occasionally answering a phone call. This leaves plenty of time to get homework done, and has helped me a lot with focusing and staying on top of my school work.
Although there are plenty of desk jobs like mine, where you can benefit from allocating more of your time towards studying, there are a variety of of other on-campus job options too.
For example, MU’s Campus Dining Services employs around 500 students at their 29 different locations. Working at any of these can help you to gain experience and skills that could help you get a job in the future, and they also offer scholarships and meal discounts to students who are employed by the Campus Dining Services.
Another one of my worries about finding a new job after moving to Columbia was how I would find time to work around all of my classes, but finding a job on-campus job helped to calm this worry.
At an on-campus job, your work schedule is adjusted to fit around your class schedule. Doing this eliminates the worries about not having time to work enough hours during the week because of your classes, which would be a problem if you worked somewhere off campus.
Working on campus also makes it even more likely that your work schedule will follow your school calendar, so you won’t ever have to work over breaks or long weekends. After all, nobody wants a job that will interfere with much-needed time off from your classes.
Anywhere that you get a job, it’s given that you are going to become familiar with your coworkers and the resources that are offered there. This is especially beneficial for students with on-campus jobs because it allows you to become familiar with one or more of the many resources on campus.
Plus, most on-campus jobs primarily employ students, which gives you the opportunity to meet other students around you that you might have not had the chance to meet otherwise. Making friends with your coworkers and fellow students gives you the perfect opportunity to share experiences and complain about whatever class is stressing you out that week.
My job at the Student Success Center has helped me a lot with becoming familiar with a majority of the different departments that focus on student success. Departments such as Academic Explorations and Advising, the Learning Center and the Career Center are all based out of this building.
If you’re lucky enough to find a job on campus that is closely related to your major, a whole new, long list of connections and references are opened up to you.
For students living on campus, another benefit of having a job on campus is that you almost never have to drive anywhere. This perk saves you money that you would have spent on gas with an off-campus job, and even eliminates the need for a car at all for getting to and from work.
My point is, you are going to have to work a real, and probably not so easy, job for the rest of your life after you graduate. So, why not take advantage of the opportunity to work an on-campus job and enjoy its many perks as you struggle through your college experience?
