Cal Shin

The Search for (Student) Employment

Before I came to Dartmouth, I was initially worried about finding an on-campus job and balancing that with the demanding coursework. I came from a high school that adopted year-long classes, so to switch from that to the fast-paced, 10-week quarter system was initially daunting. Luckily, I came to find out that finding an on-campus job is much easier than I thought it would be. 

First of all, People, Places, Pines always looks for new bloggers every year! I discovered the application by following the official Dartmouth Class of 2027 Instagram page. Having voraciously read the blog during my time as a high school senior, applying to become a blogger seemed like a no-brainer. The application asked me about my previous writing experience, why I chose Dartmouth, and some potential advice I would give to applicants. Additionally, I was asked to draft a blog post as if I were a blogger. 

My next on-campus job is not super formal! I remained on campus for the duration of winterim, and a fellow FYSEP '27 strongly recommended me to be a research assistant for a professor emeritus. While I had never spoken to this professor prior to this, I did not hesitate to take up the opportunity. At the very least, it gave me something productive to do on campus during the 6-week period! 

Last but most certainly not least, I am a social media content creator for Dartmouth Libraries! I found this particular job while looking at JobX, a database of all open jobs—both on and off campus—that the Student Employment Office maintains and updates periodically. I signed up to receive email notifications whenever a new job opens up, and when I got an email about this particular job, I was interested! Since then, I have helped create a wide variety of content for the Dartmouth Libraries social media. 

This is what the JobX platform looks like! You can filter your options based on what you're working for (in-person, hybrid, Dartmouth jobs, non-Dartmouth jobs) as well as industry and time.

You may notice that all of my jobs are on-campus. That is intentional on my part; I did not want to have to deal with the logistics of traveling off campus in addition to my coursework. However, I won't say that having an off-campus job is impossible to handle. Off-campus jobs are also posted on JobX and can be anything from caring for an elderly family member to working at a daycare to working at a nearby café! I know quite a few friends who have these off-campus jobs, and they have not faced significant difficulties due to the location of their employment. 

Of course, I can't talk about employment without talking about the workload and working conditions. I can't speak for every job on campus, but the workload for all my jobs makes it easy to balance it with a very intense Dartmouth courseload. Additionally, as of the time I am writing this post, Dartmouth's minimum wage is $16.25 an hour, more than double America's federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Keep in mind that is just the minimum wage; all of my jobs actually pay me more than $16.25 an hour. All of my employers have been super understanding of my academic and extracurricular conflicts, and I can tell that they genuinely appreciate us and the work that we do.  

In short, it is very easy to find both on- and off-campus jobs at Dartmouth. As long as you are willing to put in the work of keeping up with JobX and applying to the jobs that interest you, you are bound to secure employment in no time!