Coastal mountains of Hawai'i
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Tour guides giving introductions

Outside of my classes and their coursework, much of my time here at Dartmouth is spent working my campus jobs. I currently work three jobs: (1) admissions tour guide, (2) admissions blogger, and (3) teaching assistant (TA) for an engineering course. Navigating campus jobs can seem daunting at first, but below, I'll walk through my personal experience with them!

I mostly chose to apply for campus jobs because of work-study, included in financial aid from Dartmouth. (Read more about it here and here!) That, and, I was really interested in gaining more job experience! The first step is finding a job to apply for. Typically, this takes place through the Student Employee Office's website, known colloquially to students as JobX. Here, students can search for campus jobs that are hiring. Not all campus jobs are posted here, but a fair portion of them are. For example, some current positions posted include teaching assistant for Italian, admissions videographer, and research assistant for Department of Film and Media Studies.

I did not find any of my jobs through JobX because they followed different application processes. I applied for my first campus job— admissions tour guide—during the winter term of my first year. This application was promoted to all of campus via email! After going through the application process and being selected as a tour guide, I completed training with an upperclassman tour guide trainer. My first tour subsequently took place in May of my first year!

I've been giving weekly tours every term since spring of my first year. This term, I actually give two tours a week. During the summer, there are less students on campus than during a typical fall, winter, or spring term. Therefore, there are more tour opportunities for myself and other tour guides on campus right now! My favorite thing about giving tours is getting to meet people from all over the world. Prospective students and their families visit Dartmouth from so many cool places, from Montréal, to Beijing, to Washington, D.C.! Being from Hawaiʻi, I often find that I have a unique perspective on attending a college that's far from home, which I can only hope eases the minds of students who are considering the same.

At some point during the 90 minute tour, I'm always met with the question, "You're from Hawaiʻi? Why Dartmouth?" If you're interested in reading an actual fleshed-out answer, I wrote a whole post about it here. But, speaking candidly, I really love the new experiences - including tour guiding, where I'm able to connect with people I never would have met otherwise.


Lili giving a tour
Here's a photo that a family friend snapped of me while I was giving a tour! I look so professional…

My other job in admissions, an admissions blogger, also followed a similar application process to that of an admissions tour guide. Many students are accepted to become bloggers right around their first fall on campus, but I waited about a year to apply, and became a blogger at the beginning of my sophomore fall term. I really enjoy blogging because I can write from anywhere. I've written posts on plane rides, at the beach, or simply on the third floor of the library. The freedom this job allows is really great for me, since I have a very busy day-to-day schedule!

New bloggers eating breakfast together
Pastries on the golf course!

Blog posts can be about any aspect of Dartmouth that the blogger wishes to write about; some of mine can be more on the serious side. For example, I wrote about my major declaration and why I decided to declare a major in the Government department. But, I also wrote about the annual midnight snowball fight, a fun tradition that takes place during winter term, whenever campus receives a certain amount of snowfall.

I was inspired to apply to be an admissions blogger after reading a blog post before I came to Dartmouth. The summer before college, I remember being so nervous about finding a dance group to continue dancing with. Dance was one of my favorite extracurricular activities, and I wanted to know about Dartmouth's opportunities. Scouring the web for an inkling of information, I stumbled upon a blog post about dance groups at Dartmouth and how the audition process works. I remember feeling so excited after I read the post— I couldn't wait to show up in the fall and audition!

I auditioned for several dance groups, and was selected to be in Ujima (or Uji, for short). That very blog post? Written by one of the directors of Uji. In a way, admissions blogging brought us together, and I'm so thankful it did! I can only hope that one of my blog posts might help someone out there, too. (If you're curious, here's said blog post by Love Tsai, '23.)

My third (and newest) campus job is a teaching assistant for ENGS 2, or Integrated Design: Engineering, Architecture, and Building Technology. Along with my majoring in Government, I'm minoring in Human-Centered Design, through the Thayer School of Engineering! So far, I have experience with two courses in the ENGS department: ENGS 12 and ENGS 21. Having never taken ENGS 2, I was hesitant to take on the role as a teaching assistant; however, one of my sorority sisters recommended me to the professor, and the rest is history.

ENGS 2 is a course popular with non-engineering majors, since it does not count towards the major. Because of this, most of the students enrolled in ENGS 2 are taking it either due to an interest in architecture and studio art, or to fulfill one of our distributive requirements. (See here for a more comprehensive guide on distributives, or "distribs" for short. ENGS 2 satisfies the TAS - technology or applied science - requirement.) 

So far, my responsibilities as a teaching assistant have been to staff homework help sessions outside of class, and to grade homework assignments. I am one of six teaching assistants for the course, and typically, two of us will staff the help sessions together! It's very comforting to know that I have other teaching assistants to lean on if I'm ever unable to help a student. As the term progresses, I'm excited to also assist students with their hands-on projects!

These are just a few examples of the many campus jobs that Dartmouth students can work! Many of my friends also work on campus, from being a barista at Novack Café to staffing the circulation desk in Baker-Berry Library. I highly recommend working a campus job at some point during one's Dartmouth career; it's always nice to have more job experience (and make a little extra money, too)!

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