By Megan Loock
Elm Staff Writer
Following the return to the classroom for the first time since March 2020, many students are returning to on-campus jobs that were altered because of the virtual semester.
Students with jobs leaning towards the more physical side, such as working in catering and food service or building set pieces for the Department of Theatre and Dance, found their work completely halted because of its reliance on location for fall 2020.
Luckily many of the jobs available to students returned in the spring semester 2021, for those who decided to live on campus.
Last semester, sophomore Ashley Kreitz applied to work at the front desk at Miller Library as a student librarian assistant when the school was operating semi-normally.
“It was my first time working on campus and it was definitely an adjustment compared to jobs that I have done in the past,” she said.
Kreitz’s job was cut down to monitoring the first floor of Miller Library which involved checking green badges on the Emocha app, making sure students were following the mask mandate, maintaining social distancing guidelines, and enforcing the two-hour time limits that were set.
Students were required to sign up to visit the library ahead of time via LibCal, the seat-scheduling software that the Library and Academic Technology (LAT) group required all students to use to book study space in the library last semester, whether solo or in small, socially distanced groups, according to Director of Public Services and Faculty Librarian Amanda Darby’s Feb. 1 email.
“Many people didn’t use the library last semester which made the library even more quiet than normal,” Kreitz said.
Kreitz expressed that the job has become more challenging because of the influx of new students. and because she must to learn new skills such as how to check out books in the library.
Similarly, senior Lauren Moynihan started her job as a peer writing tutor during the fall 2020 semester with no prior experience with in-person tutoring.
However, she “came into it with perhaps a more open mind than [she] would have had otherwise as [she] had almost nothing to compare the virtual experience to.”
Before becoming a tutor, Moynihan was required to complete a prerequisite class, seminar in peer tutoring, in the spring 2020. Until classes transitioned online, the trainees experienced a few in-person tutoring sessions with the already hired tutors — these sessions continued once the switch to the virtual semester was complete.
“I also had a lot of postponed sessions due to Zoom and internet issues which wouldn’t have happened if it had been a normal year,” Moynihan said. “As being virtual is my only experience with the Writing Center as a tutor, I’m not sure how my duties will change, other than needing to be present in the [Writing] Center rather than on Zoom.”
“This year will be different, as now I have to adapt what I’ve learned and apply it to in-person tutoring,” Moynihan said.
Now that WC has returned to functioning completely in-person, many jobs have returned. Students who are interested in applying for an on-campus job should search JobX for open positions.