By: Jaylon Goodwin
Welcome back to another blog! This week I am going to be writing about work-study options on campus. I feel like this topic is one that a lot of people would be interested in as we need money to survive off of and we’re just trying to become less dependent on our parents.
I’d like to start off by saying that there are a healthy number of employments opportunities for people looking for work on campus. I have worked in McAlister Auditorium as a student stagehand for the past 4 years and I can say that it has been a very pleasurable experience. There are a lot of advantages to having an on-campus job such as scheduling that can work around your class schedule, some jobs aren’t terribly demanding and you can do homework in between work assignments, also most times you are working with others so you can make plenty of friends.
Finding a job on-campus is not very difficult either. As you can see from the photo above you can see what jobs are being listed and apply on the spot. There also other locations that look to hire every year like the Trone Student Center, they usually post flyers when their applications are live. There are also opportunities after your freshman to be on housing staff. You can be either a Resident Assistant or a FRAD, which is a First Year Advisor. There are some separate requirements for each of these jobs but both are great employment opportunities including discounts on the housing bill!
Now for the most important part, getting paid! I believe the majority of jobs get paid bi-weekly through the Workday system that Furman has implemented for all things work-related. Each job has different payment amounts, for example, my job at McAlister started at $8.50 an hour but every year you have employment with them it goes up to $1.00! One thing to be aware of is that you are responsible for entering your own hours and having your time manager (usually just your boss) approve them so you can be sure to get paid. There is the possibility of working multiple jobs as you are not limited to how many jobs you can hold on campus. There is a limit though to how many hours you can work, so be cognizant of the number of hours you are
Now there are some people who choose to take off-campus jobs, which is also a definite option! There are some off-campus tutoring jobs through the university but as for just general employment, there are few things I would precaution for. Firstly, jobs off-campus are guaranteed to take your class schedule into consideration, second, you need a way to get there! Furman does allow freshmen to have cars on campus but it all depends on if you bring your car at all.
That’s about all I have to talk about for about student employment. I hope this has answered any questions you have!