Two weeks ago was National Student Employment Week, at least according to the North University Center. To show my appreciation for student workers, I decided to bother them while they worked. From the day to Northwestern, I'm Mika Ellison. This is Digital Diaries, a weekly podcast following the college experience and asking students questions about life at Northwestern.
This week, I ask people one important question. Do you love your job? Do you love your campus job? Do you love your campus job?
Do you love your campus job? To hear their answers, listen on. Hundreds of students pass their university library every day. But what about the student workers that help the library function?
I spoke with Weinberg, Jr., La La Hia Adrian, who described her job as a welcome desk attendant. Basically, I either sit here or at the game, welcome desk. And it's usually just like, if people lose their wild guard, I'm supposed to let them in and stuff like that. And do you love your job?
Yeah, you know what? It pays well, it's minimum wage, but it's an easy job, and I get to do my homework doing it. So it's a good, like, built-in study hours. Aduim usually works in the night shift.
From 9pm to 12am, which she describes as peaceful. McCormick sophomore Herbert Botway agrees that university library's best quality is tranquility. As a library security aide, he patrols the floors of the library periodically. It's so peaceful, it gets the statey part of the library.
That's what it makes you like awesome. The perfect day is early in the morning. You know how people come in and going. Botway's job also includes looking for lost items in the stacks.
You would be surprised by how many Northwest and kids cannot remember their wild card. Like, at this point, I also know people who lose it most frequently, so I can recognize their names. And I'm just like, how do you lose it this often? It's funny, no shade to anyone, it's just really funny.
Modell Sophomore used to keep by-out works at the Information Commons desk at University Library. Aduim your job. I do love my job so much. I feel like this is one of the most coveted jobs because all I do is sit and do what I would usually do, but at this desk.
Most common questions are how do I print? And where's the bathroom? And I know the answer to those two questions, so it's quite an enjoyable time. Keep by-out actually started working at the desk before starting at Enuim.
Following in the footsteps of her father, who also works at University Library. She says part of the reason why working at the IC desk is fun is because of the unique atmosphere students create. I feel like a lot of my fun moments are when I can offer some sense of peace to other students who are at least struggling to figure things out. One time, last week, the re-hole puncher wasn't working, and all of this person's papers got stuck in it.
And so they were like, oh, I just needed the credit to print this. Can I take the entire re-hole punch to my class just to get this credit? I was like, yeah, you can take it. I had the power to tell you what you can take it.
For Kibayo, a perfect day at the desk includes interacting with other student workers. This actually isn't part of the job at all. My friends will pass by and be like, oh, I'm picking something up from the cafe. Do you want something?
And I'm like, yes, I do. I'm free drinks. I would love it because I just know I'm stuck here. I think that's really nice.
I spoke to Brew coffee lab, Marisa, a middle sophomore, Darya Telawi, about being a part of Northwestern student-staffed cafe. The atmosphere is also just a lot more chill. We had to play our music, and we control all it's and everything. And everyone's very supportive.
Everyone knows we're also students. And so we're also supporting each other, talking about school work or stuff that we're doing. While we're pulling up a espresso shot. So it's a great environment.
Telawi says her favorite drink to make is fruit tea. She and her co-workers experiment all the time, even putting espresso shots in matcha. Lately, they've been branching out and making smoothies. We have a bunch of frozen fruit and the freezer in the back that we never use, it's supposed to be for Boba, but no one ever really orders it.
So it's just sitting there. And now that the weather's been getting warmer, we should just start making smoothies since we have the blenders with them. Workers at the cage, and used place to check out video and recording equipment, also talked about the joy of hanging out with co-workers. Here's communication senior, Caroline Bates, who describes herself as an equipment cage guru on her LinkedIn.
I love working at the cage. It's kind of become like a hangout spot for a lot of us. Even when we're not on shift, we still just stop by and hang out. I think Nick's been off for like two hours now.
I should fit in at 12, it's now 2.30. And it actually caught Bates in the middle of making a co-worker family tree. It's kind of a tradition. We have like our two bosses at the top.
We're making a cage family tree that's just all of our co-workers based on vibes. Bates says the atmosphere makes working at the cage a great campus job. I think it's really the people that make the cage so great. I think because we all are friends outside of work and they all do like film sets together.
There's never a lack of things to talk about. Communication Junior, Sienna Camroda agrees. Feels much more like getting paid to hang out with your friends than, you know, how many I gotta go to my job. Many co-workers at the cage are friends.
So birthdays and other special occasions mean lots of festivities. There's always celebrations. Yeah, he brought in a cake for his birthday and celebrated here at work. It's employee appreciation week.
And so today our boss gave us these like little cactus candles and cinerals. Whether it's cactus candles, three whole punches or homemade smoothies, according to these students, campus jobs can be more than just a paycheck. They're a community. From the Daily Northwestern, I'm Mika Ellison.
Thanks for listening to the third episode of Digital Diaries Season Three. This episode was reported by me and produced by the Tina Sanchez Cordova. The audio editor of the Daily Northwestern is myself. Digital managing editors are Ava Mandoli and Eric Schmidt.
And the editor-in-chief is Alex Carey. Make sure to subscribe to the Daily Northwestern's podcast and Spotify, Apple Podcast, or SunCloud to hear more episodes like this.