The community I’m focusing on is the community of college students who are part time workers. I am an insider to this community because I am a part time worker who attends college at the same time. I work as a doorman/ porter at a building in the Upper East Side on 80th street. Since I don’t work full time I am known as the “relieve guy” since I work when someone is either on vacation, taking a sick day, or any other reason. My dad, who has been working for the building as a porter for many years, was the one who got me the job and I have been working there since the summer before my first year at CCNY. This experience of working while attending school is what meaningfully connect me to this community. Now that I have been working there for a while I have been able to gain insights for my research on how working can affect a student in different ways. Being an insider gives me the privilege of knowing more about my topic which gives me the opportunity to share a lot of my experiences and how I handle it. This will also help with being able to relate to the people I plan on interviewing since they are also going to be students who are part time workers. We will be able to easily talk to one another because we would already have an established connection because of the community we share. However, being an insider would also be a challenge for me as I do this work. It is going to be a challenge to put myself in the outsider position when I have been an insider for a while. When interviewing I am going to have to be more of an audience than a fellow member of the community. I will acknowledge my power as a researcher by reminding myself that I am able to research and talk about anything I want that involves my subculture. I am going to provide the information that I think is best and most important . I will be managing my power as a researcher by knowing when to be the insider and outsider.
As someone who is familiar with this community, I think there are multiple critical policy issues that there can be talked about when discussing students who are part time workers. However, the one that I want to address is a simple one. The issue that I plan on addressing is the lack of awareness I believe there is at school on how working part time while attending college can affect the student in different ways. I believe once this issue is addressed first then the rest will be addressed as well.
Many students know that when you are in college you have to dedicate a large amount of your time to school if you want to do well and succeed. However, not every student is able to do this since they have to work part time jobs in order to buy school supplies, textbooks, food, and personal items. This forces them to divide their time to be able to do both which sacrifices any personal time they would want for themselves. I interviewed one of my friends, Shazida, who works at a Key Food Supermarket as a cashier when she is not at Hunter where she attends school. I asked her to describe to me the difficulties she faces as a student part time worker. One of her first concerns that she described to me was that “Having a part time job makes it difficult for me to make time for myself and my loved ones.” After hearing this I immediately wanted to agree with her and talk about what I’d like to do and just bond from sharing this. However, I was the interviewer so I wanted her to elaborate which she did. She explained how some students go to school four to five times a week and how they usually get to enjoy their free time after school or on the weekends but she, like many others, do not have this privilege. Most importantly, she talks about how working “takes away time for doing hw and studying” and by the time she gets home she feels tired because her energy was already wasted by being at work standing for seven hours. This shows how working part time can affect a student. In Geerlink and Conrad’s research on “What effects do student jobs have on the study performance, competency and career development of hospitality management students,” they discuss how students “who work more than 15 hours a week have poor academic performances and are more likely to quit their studies.” With school and work, they both take up a majority of a student’s time to study and do their homework or any other other assignments. As a result of this students tend to fail tests, turn in incomplete assignments, or not turn in assignments at all. This doesn’t mean that they’re bad students, it means that they are struggling with working and going to school at the same time.
The simple answer to this would be to quit right? It’s not because students need to make money to pay for textbooks, pay for college, and maybe have to help out at home. Another answer would be to go and try to find a work study job where you would be able to study and do homework while on the job. Geerlink and Conrad also discuss how students who “worked while studying, in the years afterwards, he or she finds a better job compared to students who did not work alongside their studies.” However, this also isn’t an answer. I interviewed my cousin, Selinee, who has an office work study job at Lehigh. Since I believed that students who had work study jobs might have an advantage since they could study and do work at their job I wanted to ask if this was true for her. However, she says this isn’t true for her “at allllll” because at her job they don’t allow it. She said at some place they do and some they don’t. I was surprised to hear this since I thought all work study jobs allowed this. Even if some do and some don’t this doesn’t mean every student can get a work study job since there is only a limited amount. Some will be forced to find outside jobs. Since a majority of college students face this struggle I would want to see colleges start implementing some sort of system where working students start showing their work schedule to their professors. They will do this in order to get a short extension for an important upcoming assignment if they feel like they won’t have enough time that week because of work to do it on time. Students can bring a signed note from their boss or maybe asked them to send an email in order to show proof. I think this can be a way to help students and their academic performance.