I think we can all agree, having a job in college is not one of the many exciting, optional, fun experiences that we associate our time at a university with. Jobs, for many of us, are a way to support ourselves in costly collegiate environments and pay for the pricey education we are receiving. Balancing school, social life and extracurriculars with a job (or jobs) can be tricky and stressful. This additional stressor in our already busy lives can lead to feelings of disinterest or disdain for the jobs we work.
When I started an on-campus job last fall, I was eager for the convenience of being able to walk to work and pick my own hourly schedule each week. Throughout the semester, though, this convenience was outweighed by my growing disdain for the work. I started seeing my job as an annoyance and found reasons to complain about something that in reality was not that bad but was really helping me pay for my daily expenses.
Having lost my zeal for the job, I left it and began searching for an off-campus barista job for the spring semester. I got the job I was looking for and was about to begin until I realized the hours I was required to work weren’t feasible for a full-time college student. I was at a crossroads. My job last semester was perfect on paper but I dreaded going every day. My new job wanted me to work a crazy amount of hours and had no sympathy for student life.
Against all odds, I decided to re-onboard back at my old, on-campus job. After consulting with my wise best friend, she gave me the advice to romanticize the work. The lack of a professional environment was instead an opportunity for fun and not having to worry too much about an intense work environment. Having a required amount of hours to work each week was turned into a forced way of making money to not go broke! The dress code was an opportunity to put together cute seasonal outfits. Sometimes unexciting work was a chance to get some studying done simultaneously or catch up on reading.
This new view of my job revolutionized the way I went to work each day over the semester. I didn’t even need to lower my expectations of work–I just needed to change them. Having a boss, coworkers, a weekly schedule and expected duties gives me career-development skills even if the job is unrelated to my future line of work. Coworkers my age are another opportunity to meet friends and even network! Hours spent behind a desk can help me understand career goals (like not sitting behind a desk).
Whether your college job is something you loathe, love or don’t mind, there are lessons we can learn from these opportunities. Honing professional skills, developing communication, learning what we do and don’t like and even just gaining exposure to different careers and coworkers are experiences that are unique to each job. Every day doesn’t have to be fruitful and perfect. We don’t need to learn lessons from every experience to make it specifically meaningful or to capitilize off of it. However, more often than not, these experiences do come with lessons learned, friends made and exposure gained.
If you’re thinking of quitting like I was and did, take a moment to ponder if what’s needed is really a shift job or a shift in mentality.