my student worker job!

Jul 28, '08 7:59 PM for everyone

I am currently a grad student of electrical engineering in University of Southern California. Grad student means i am a boring, geek and non essential part of the university. The same way that we use to treat our Mtech students in undergrad. I wouldn't agree to the boring and non essential part, but certainly to the geeky part.

Here, you just can't afford to be non-geeky, unless you want to ruin your life or..ofcourse if you are a multi-tasking champion. My university has the reputation of most expensive universitiy with most number of international students intake. Well if you come here.you would see that..international here means "Indian" or perhaps "chinese". Atleast I can say that about the engineering school.

Along with the hectic study-life here, one has to earn his living himself,mostly,through their student worker jobs.these jobs can pay you from a small $8 to $20. Ofcourse $8 means you earn $640 a month after sloggin 80 hrs in a month. and this money in LA is just barely sufficient to pay your rent or bills.

My student worker job started from working in "trojan Grounds",this was the starbucks of our university. I used to make coffee and shakes for university people. In a way it was a fun job.The managers were cool, there were no timing restriction and my co-workers were just amazing. It was a whole new experience for me. I used to love talking to people coming in the cafe. I used to love giving free coffee to my friends and their friends and everybody else who had a remote connection to me.

As a student worker you don't hold much of a responsibility in a job.Neither do people expect a lot from you. The only thing they expect is punctuality and a little bit of a professionalism.
Professionalism here does matter a lot. But i agree is very different from the picture of "professionalism in US" i had in india...Bosses are bosses but they don't boss much...every co-worker is treated nicely. i like that part...and in Trojan grounds i was kind of happy...

But "trojan grounds" is closed in summer and they don't hire student workers for summer. Sad but true! I had to look for a new job for the summer as I was auditing the web-tech course and couldn't go to india. I soon found a job in the USC housing office where i was a customer service representative. The used to pay me $ 8.25 ( yeeeeeee...a hike) and i was suppose to answer the queries of people regarding thier housing assignements and etc.

This job had too many timing restictions, plus i hated doing filing.. cumon! it was like a polished peon who had to run errands, flie stuff, paste labels and aprt from these, answer phones. :) The only thing i learnt from this was how we pester the customer service people by shouting at them and calling them worthless. he he...yaaa it feels wierd to be on the other side of the phone..

Now, I earn a $11 per hour as the web developer in Department of public safety. This job is cool. My boss is super cool. and plus i am Rich.. haha atleast not bankrupt all the time!...
i get $800 a month, which is sufficient to pay my 500 dollar rent and still live lavishly...Also, My boss here is the most ideal boss you can ever have. He is nice, funny, creative, flexible and caring. What else can one ask for?

One good thing that happened to me through this job is that i have started working freelance with my friend. We design websites for people who can't really afford the big companies and yet wants a nice website for their work. IT keeps me happy as we have some xtra cash flowing in and i can keep my creative side alive by designing nice interfaces for these websites.

After all! My student worker job did pay back! Its sometimes nice to be a small non existent but yet important part of your firm. So, when a stupid HR asks me about what kind of work i like, I can honestly answer her that " No work is big or small, work is work and it needs to be done!".