<p>I'm a certified lifeguard with on-campus employment as part of my financial aid package, so I'm hoping to avoid having to serve food for a living. Anyway, I'm just wondering what it's like working at the school's aquatics center.</p>
<p>My d is too. She called the rec center and spoke with the Aquatics director (don’t know her name) but was assured there were often guard hours and she too wants to avoid dining hall. Good luck!</p>
<p>The pool pays better than the dining hall and there are many hours available.</p>
<p>For work-study programs at Grinnell, can you choose where you want to work? Or do they simply assign jobs to new students? For instance, if I wanted to work in the library could I fill out a request to do so?</p>
<p>They will just assign you to Dining Services. When you get to Campus you can apply to other jobs, e.g. the library, mail services, phonathon, TCs, etc. though. Some of these jobs are fairly popular though so they may not necessarily have to many openings for incoming first years.</p>
<p>For the record, Dining Hall isn’t that bad so long as you avoid the bad stations. All the front line food stations suck, and Wok and beverages are awful in their own way, but salad bar, vegan, veg prep, dish line, etc. are pretty easy.</p>
<p>Also, you don’t want to work in phonathon. There are a couple people who seem to like it, but most people agree it’s the worst job on campus.</p>
<p>You probably won’t be able to get them as a first year, but the best jobs are the desk jobs at the gym, the library, etc. You can do your homework during your downtime, which you have a lot of.</p>
<p>Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly does one do at Dining Services?</p>
<p>
There are lots of different jobs, and they all do different things. You get to sign up for your shifts at the beginning of each semester, and you can sign up for anything so long as it’s open.</p>
<p>If you sign up for the grill, you’ll be making hamburgers, toasting buns, making french fries, etc. If you sign up for wok, you’ll be taking orders or making stir fry. If you sign up for salad bar or vegan, you’ll spend most of your time refilling croks. If you sign up for dish room, you’ll be washing dishes.</p>
<p>None of the stations really require any particular training or skills, so you can sign up for whatever you want. Pizza, veg prep and wok take certain skills but they will teach you on the job so it’s not a big deal.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think I’d rather work somewhere other than the dining hall. What steps would I need to take in order to apply for a different position this fall? Is there someone/an office I should contact? Also, how much availability is there for other jobs (i.e. could I work in the mailroom potentially)?? I’d be happy with pretty much anything except dining services.</p>
<p>You have to approach the different departments directly. There is no central office to contact. I know that the mail room will probably hire first-years during NSO, I imagine it’s the same with other departments. </p>
<p>One word of caution though: The Dining Hall will be able to give you the hours you got through work study, other places may not. E.g. if you get 10 hours of work-study some places may only be able to give you 4. Keep that in mind.</p>
<p>I heard that you can also write for the newspaper for money. Is that true? If so, perhaps I could do a combination of newspaper/mailroom or something?</p>
<p>Mail room only gives you 4 hours/week, I believe. Newspaper is possible but I don’t know if they’d take a first semester freshman.</p>
<p>The newspaper pays for articles and they take first-years but keep in mind that you need to know how to write for that job.</p>
<p>My son did write for the newspaper and was paid, but not until jr or sr year. He writes well and enjoyed it. One of his articles was picked up by the Huffington Post. He also worked for security, ticketing illegally parked cars. He kinda liked that too.</p>
<p>Yeah, hopefully I might be able to get something with the newspaper. I’m the editor of my school’s newspaper right now, so hopefully they’ll look favorably upon that. In any case, can you guys recommend some other jobs that I could do other than dining services? Maybe some jobs that alot of people don’t really know about, but aren’t too bad and that a first-semester freshman wouldn’t have much trouble getting? Thanks!</p>
<p>I was nervous about working in the dhall, but now I rather like it. I’ve worked vegan, pizza, deli, bakery, some veg prep, and some grill. There’s always hours available- you can work your amount needed for work study and more, if you’d like, especially second semester after a lot of first years flee. The hours are super flexible, so if you have a class that gets done at 12 and still want to work lunch they’ll usually let you. If you’re a morning person, there’s shifts before classes start in the morning.</p>
<p>I also was the orchestra helper- but that’s half an hour a week, about, and for minimum wage, which is less than what the dining hall pays. It was fun, though!</p>
<p>Morning shifts at the dining hall might not be too bad, considering I’m usually up pretty early. Can you recommend any other jobs accessible to first years though?</p>
<p>Phone-a-thon is usually looking for ANYONE to work for them, if you like calling alumni and badgering them for money.</p>
<p>Yeah I’ve heard alot about Phon-a-thon lol, can’t be all that bad though. Anything else come to mind? Thanks for all the help, I appreciate it alot!</p>
<p>Mentoring for a class is a great way to get paid, but you need to do well in a class and contact the prof for the following year. Mentoring pays well and looks good on an application for grad or med school. Typically only science classes look for mentors and are 6-8 hr commitments.</p>