CCE has nothing on you

Ever had a work-study job that you feel doesn’t quite put your Ivy League education to good use? Senior Staff Writer Nadra Rahman is here to tell you how to make copying paper, watching netflix one-volume-above-mute, look like you have single-handedly solved world hunger and achieved eternal world peace. 

Your work-study job, to put it succinctly, probably sucks. You mostly push around paper, doze off at inopportune moments, and text your friends whenever your coworker does something particularly moronic (during midterms, you will instead feverishly read your textbook every time your supervisor’s back is turned). This is all a congenial state of affairs while you’re working—how else are you going to afford the choicest goods at International?—but presents a problem once you start looking for a summer internship: how do you play up a job that a well-behaved seven year-old can do in reasonable circumstances, in order to get a job that a well-behaved nine year-old can do in reasonable circumstances?

Well…

Public Safety (Residence Hall Aide)

An honest résumé might make mention of the countless hours you spend watching Netflix (on very low volume, because you are not brave enough to emulate the fearless night-shift guards), doing Lit Hum reading, or creepily scrolling through the swipe-in log to see when your crush returned home last night. You might even include the many calls you’ve dropped while working at the base office, the stern reprimands you’ve received for using your cell phone while on duty, and the visceral hatred that pulses through you when someone forgets to say “thank you.”

Instead, try to appear productive and well-adjusted! You’re not a creep: you offer friendly and reliable customer service, making use of your knowledge of the campus; enforce university-wide protocol; de-escalate stressful situations; and function as a mediary between the office of Public Safety and the student body. You can dress it up in a lot of other ways.

Events Associate

It’s nice getting paid to sit through events when your only responsibilities are greeting guests, passing around microphones during Q & As, and signing off on wine deliveries. That being said, the most intellectually taxing part of the job is deciding how you want to display the cheese and crackers—it’s not exactly something to write home about.

If you must, you should discuss how your job requires you to multitask and solve mini-crises on the daily, interface with a number of prominent experts in academia/music/whatever (read: experts in esoterica), and has familiarized you with event-planning and the logistics of producing successful panels/concerts/whatever for a large audience. Much of this is patently false.

Community Impact

The nice part about working for a nonprofit like Columbia Impact is that you already seem like a decent, community service-oriented person. Nevermind the fact that you mostly take attendance of volunteers, or talk to schoolchildren who don’t really care, or feel mildly useless whenever you have to speak to clients because you lied about your Spanish proficiency. Of course, Community Impact administers dozens of programs, and some of the positions available are likely intellectually engaging and skill-building. But a lot aren’t. Occasionally, you will find yourself taking snaps of your cute coworker or spending hours chatting with your easy-going boss instead of doing anything that can be deemed productive. But jazzing up this one is easy!

You’re dealing with a diverse and high-need group, which has informed the development of your interpersonal communication strategies; you remain calm in high-stress periods, delegate responsibilities, work as part of a team to effect change, more clichés, etc.

Administrative Assistant

This job mainly involves taking screenshots of funny emails and sending them to your friends. The other component is copying paper, scanning paper, stapling paper, carrying paper from one person to another, carrying it back, and perhaps even mailing it. You might have been told that you would be doing social media or blog stuff (as a millennial, you are a total #expert), and you find this part of the job as painful and grating as any other.

You’ll have better luck presenting yourself as someone who coordinates logistics; provides communications, technical, and PR support; and develops innovative social media strategies, raising the department’s number of Twitter followers from X to Y.

Of course, when you actually write your resume, use more action words and be more specific about your projects and achievements (if you had any). Be creative! If your job is different from those listed, let their spirit guide you anyway. And keep the lying to a minimum—it’ll come back to haunt you.

To those who have had positive work-study experiences, and who do cool, fulfilling work: okay.

Hardly Working via Wikimedia Commons