While many KSC students return home after the spring semester ends and summer break begins, others stay behind to work on campus.
Toward the end of the spring semester, students might notice flyers being hung up in their dorms or other on-campus buildings advertising certain jobs and how to apply. Although these jobs tend to be the most visible to students, Assistant Director of Transitions Michael Brown said there are many more opportunities.
“There are a few locations on campus, different offices that look for student help,” said Brown.
Some of these programs and departments include Upward Bound, community living and the campus bookstore. These jobs might last the whole summer season, while others might only be for a short period of time.
Brown organizes the summer orientation staff, who help incoming students adjust to being at KSC.
“Part of their role [is that] they help out with the call campaigns that we do in the spring semester,” said Brown. “Then they participate in June orientation with bringing their orientation groups around. Then they come back for the July orientation and they come back early in August for move-in and Welcome Days.”
“Another part of the orientation job is TA’ing a first-year seminar class,” continued Brown.
According to Brown, a full orientation staff has around 36 students.
One first-time orientation leader, who asked to remain unnamed, spoke on her responsibilities in the role.
“We do Admitted Students Day, what you probably did the summer before you became a freshman here,” she said. “Then we meet with really small groups of incoming freshmen and we do activities with them, we show them around campus and get them acclimated.”
“It’s a great on-campus experience and the [orientation leader] team is so sweet,” she continued.
She also spoke on some of the accommodations the orientation team receives while they need to stay on campus.
“They let us stay in the [Living and Learning] Commons, we all get singles there … while we’re training,” she said. “The [Zorn Dining Commons] is closed, but they do give us a stipend for meals.”
Being on the orientation staff is just one way for students to stay involved on campus over the summer. Pondside Community Director Morgan Prittie spoke about some of the jobs involving community living.
“The two roles that we have for students through community living are the summer community assistant position, we usually hire those from people who are current [community assistants],” said Prittie. “The other role we hire is for our conference team…it’s our first time having this role specifically. We’re calling it a summer housing assistant and it’s essentially a summer conference worker.”
Both roles work for the entirety of the summer and students working them would get rooming in the Pondside 2 dorms.
Prittie discussed what the responsibilities of both roles would be. Summer community assistants (CAs) would do the same duties as a CA during the academic year, although there are fewer students who live on campus over the summer. The summer housing assistants help set up for various conferences held on campus and run check-in and check-out for any guests staying in the dorm rooms for the conference.
For students looking to get involved, the best way to do so is to reach out to the different departments across campus to see what roles need to be filled.
“Definitely reach out to the [Student Academic Support Services] department and career services,” said Brown. “Sometimes, just simply asking … a professor or a staff member that you’re well-connected to, they know the resources.”
“Definitely start by making a pros and cons list for yourself,” said Prittie. “As someone who was a summer worker, it was some of the most fun I ever had as a student.”
Orion Corbin can be contacted at
