If you’re like me, you might have a full-time or part-time job to pay your rent and bills, as well as to buy necessities or drinks during nights out.
Being able to balance a full course load and a job is no easy task, but students should still be able to find ways to be accommodated by our employers.
Recently, the Tuscaloosa area, like many other college towns, saw an uptick in hiring as students returned for school. Businesses all around town proudly posted openings for full-time and part-time options as well as flexible scheduling.
Obviously, flexible scheduling would grant a student the ability to work around their classes and maybe have a social life.
Jobs don’t seem to actually like when college students want to work. If you can’t work early mornings because of your 9 a.m. but you want to compromise and ask to work at 10:30, your application may not even result in a phone call for an interview.
It can be extremely discouraging to get turned away from a job simply because school comes first. Why say that you’re hiring but refuse to employ college-aged students in a college town? A lot of these establishments would rather continue to be short-staffed and continue to work their current employees into the ground than work with determined college students.
These businesses do not have time to be picky and choosy with whom they decide to hire, especially with the holiday season around the corner. We have two options: call our parents for money, or succumb to an on-campus job that accommodates our schedules, but pays an extremely low wage.
If you take that second option, that may be anywhere from $290 to $400 every paycheck before tax, with a maximum of 20 hours a week. For some students, that amount is perfectly fine, but for those who receive little to no outside financial support, that is simply not feasible.
Businesses need to realize that their staffing problem is mainly due to the fact that they’re allergic to college-aged student employees. Most college students who are employed aren’t doing it for fun, they’re doing it so that they can afford to pay for their education and other bills.
For the most part, on-campus housing is at a premium due to the ever-increasing student population, so apartments are vital. It doesn’t help that these apartments know this and continue to increase their rent prices.
So, we need these jobs, and we need these jobs to start accommodating our class schedules.
