This week, I just want to talk about a campus service that I have been interacting with throughout the entire semester: Housing and Food Services’ work program. I have a few parts that I am angry about, a few parts that I am content with, and a couple suggestions that I would make given the chance.
1. Background Information
First off, some context. The program goes as follows: Work for Housing and Food services at one of the locations for 18 hours per week, and your bursar will be paid off at $17 an hour. Any other work will be paid at $10 an hour. Relatively simple on paper. However, in execution, it’s far more difficult. Depending on the location, you could just be preparing food, actually cooking it, or cleaning dishes more often. You could have only a total of 500 people during the course of a day, or 1000 for just lunch. The differences in quality for each working area could be drastically different from location to location. For example, Headington/Dunham ResCo Cafeteria is far cleaner and a more positive atmosphere compared to that of Couch Restaurants.
2. Some Gripes I Have
There are a few things that are somewhat disappointing about the program. Despite Housing being in the name of Housing and Food, and Room being a part of Room and Board, there are no Housing-based positions in the program. All there is available is food service. Having the option to work on cleaning and/or maintaining things in the halls of the residence areas of campus would be great. If you’re not really able to cook or handle food that well, having other options to work in the program would be useful for students. Another aspect that’s disappointing is the inconsistent workload. Some locations, like at Couch, are very difficult due to their high traffic. Others, like Headington/Dunham or Acre Provisions, are relatively simple. It makes no sense, and transferring to an easier place is almost always the easiest option.
3. Some Good of the Program
Thankfully, there is some good to be had in the program. 18 hours is potentially very flexible. Some weeks, if I need it, I can even mix and match my hours in the program and still get a full paycheck sent to the bursar. The bursar also gets paid at about $600 a month, which is really powerful. Paying off the bursar over the course of the whole semester is the goal, after all. It’s been very helpful, just very tiring. On that note, if the harder work is something that a person can handle, and they work fairly late, they can fall asleep easier. Not a normal bonus, but a bonus nonetheless.
4. Some Suggestions
If I was allowed to help improve the program, I would mainly make two changes. First, give the ability to choose a location when entering the program for the first time. This might mean that areas like Couch could receive less freshmen at the start of the semester, but making sure those freshman are able to acclimate to the college environment is important. If they feel like they want more challenge, they can transfer to a new location if need be. Second, giving more options for work will attract more students to the program. If you already keep your room really clean, then helping to keep the halls clean will be a piece of cake. It would make sense to give the janitors some extra help, too. Other changes would be a bit more miscellaneous; allowing a student worker to be able to change their schedule for a day on the fly, in case an emergency came up and they needed to swap their shift from morning to night, for example.
Getting that off my chest has been a long time coming. However, I am thankful that the program exists; otherwise I would have about $3,000 of debt on my bursar account that I would need to pay off and some extra time that I wouldn’t know what to do with.