Student jobs: how to get paid to have fun

JULIA TIERNAN/YH Dining Hall jobs at Yale are among the most popular.

By Sarah Dews

Freshman year is a crash course in procrastination, and a job is a lucrative way to foster this skill. A good student job offers all the social advantages of an extracurricular activity, plus a paycheck--something you won't get from any singing group, sports team, or newspaper position.

There are plenty of ways to earn some money while having fun: Rachel Lears, TC '99, sings in one of New Haven's many paid choirs; Jamie McLaren, ES '98, gets paid for talking on the phone while passing out practice room keys at the Music School; and I get lots of good sandbox time as a paid kindergarten assistant.

The following is a mix of approaches to finding employment. Work-study jobs usually hire only financial aid students. Work-study is a nebulous system at Yale, and many of the campus job opportunities--dining hall work, for instance--aren't part of this government network of wage-subsidized work. There are also clauses requiring all student employers to give priority to work-study students during the early September job-hunting season, so if you do receive aid, you'll have a distinct advantage. Nevertheless, anyone can find a job with a little persistence.

Work-study or not, job hunters should first check out Hendrie Hall's Student Employment Office (SEO). There, you'll find a large bulletin board covered with tiny job notices--mostly the filing and copying brand of drudgery, with a few more unusual job opportunities like dog walking or web design. During the first weeks of school, Hendrie Hall is full of eager Yalies copying down phone numbers and pay rates.

There are also plenty of less grueling ways to find a campus job. Figure out what you're looking for: a desk job in the library or college Master's Office, a social job working at the gym or in the dining hall, a service-oriented job with Dwight Hall, or a position as a research assistant for a department or professor. Go directly to the employer, such as the dining hall or the library, to inquire about these types of jobs.

Desk jobs pay well and are often little more than paid homework time. A job at the dining hall or gym requires more work, but is also a nice break from studying and pays better. Dwight Hall offers work-study funded service through the America Reads tutoring program, Dwight Hall Urban Fellows, and similar fellowships.

You can seek employment for science research or lab assistant jobs from a department or professor. Other non-science departments, such as economics and history, typically have openings for research assistants. And, of course, there are always psych experiments, which range from chocolate taste-testing to measuring social attitudes toward minorities. Despite their irregularity, psych experiments are easy cash for the person who doesn't mind being probed and prodded.

My first job was in the TD dining hall. It was a fantastic opportunity to make money and meet people. I got to see the entire population of TD, make $10 an hour, and wait on hysterically drunk seniors at the Senior Dinner. Sophomore year, I started missing people from outside the 18-22 year-old range and decided to seek them out in their non-Yale-affiliated hiding places. As it turns out, working at the Calvin Hill School has been a great balance to dining hall work, and a lot of the same vocabulary comes up ("No, that's enough pasta, sweetheart. Please toss out your napkin! Five minutes...").

Beyond the multitude of campus jobs, New Haven is full of restaurants, bookstores, and coffee shops which offer employment. Working at these establishments provides a new perspective on New Haven and can be a great escape from the ivory tower of Yale.

Still, work in New Haven may not be as flexible as campus work, and your off-campus boss may not consider your seminar paper a legitimate excuse for missing a shift.

Whatever it is, your job is a guaranteed way to meet fellow citizens of Yale and New Haven. Make friends, make money, and put off your unpaid obligations.

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