A little cash on the side

Richmond Owusu '09 spends at least eight hours every week deep within the bowels of Firestone Library. In a room that even the most avid of Firestone explorers may never have noticed, Owusu settles down with a pile of homework and waits for library visitors to seek his assistance in navigating the University's extensive microforms collection.

"It's pretty laid back," he said. "When people don't come in, you get to sit down and study."

Owusu is one of about 2,200 students who work on campus during an average school year. Though his expertise in microforms is unique, his workplace's setting is fairly common: Last year, library jobs were the most popular on-campus positions. They comprised 20 percent of student jobs, followed by Dining Services at 15 percent.

Though it might seem puzzling for Princeton students to add jobs to their hectic lives full of classes, papers and extracurricular activities, they do so for varied reasons.

For two-thirds of the students who have campus jobs, working is a necessary part of their financial aid package, according to the Student Employment Office. For the one-third of students who are not on financial aid, the reasons for their employment range from a need for extra cash to a yen for a nonacademic pastime.

When it comes to choosing a job, it seems that there are two main factors to consider: salaries and amount of effort.

Owusu said he appreciates that he is able to do homework while waiting for visitors who need his help sorting through the microform section, which contains titles from various disciplines preserved as microfilm, microfiche and microprint, all of which can only be viewed with special equipment. While the job may have its busy points — instances when, he said, "it's so busy you would like to go crazy" — the majority of the time he spends there is much more relaxed.

Many undergraduates purposely seek out more laid-back jobs, Betty Ashwood, director of the Student Employment Office, said. "For some students, they want something that is kind of mindless," Ashwood said.

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There is a tradeoff to that downtime, though. Owusu's salary — which he declined to reveal precisely but said is around $12 an hour — is not the highest he could be receiving. He used to work in Wilcox Dining Hall, where he had the chance to become a dining hall manager earning $13 per hour, but he quit because he wanted to do a different kind of work.

"The library is definitely better," he said.

Not all students despise dining hall work. Steve Batis '07 said he likes working in the dining hall. Now a manager in Wu Dining Hall, Batis is paid $13 per hour.

Nevertheless, Batis, who started working in the dining hall as a freshman, said he did not earn his rank without effort. Rising to manager required "working hard and showing up to all of my shifts," he said.

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While the hard work dining halls require turns off many students, Batis said he finds his work enjoyable. "It's a little bit more down and dirty than a job working at a library or something like that," he said, "[but] I like that. It makes [the time] go by faster."

"I've made a lot of good friends working here at the dining hall," he added.

Rei Thompson '09 holds three jobs on campus, working at Marquand Library, the Office of Financial Aid and the Special Occasions Student Agency, where she delivers flowers and cakes. She looked for jobs that didn't require constant activity. "I don't have to focus too much on a particular task," she said.

Salaries for campus jobs are determined by a number of factors. Since Owusu received training before he could start his job, his rank is automatically higher than a student with a job that requires no training.

Though Owusu and Thompson both spend eight hours a week in one of the libraries on campus, Owusu makes more than a dollar an hour more than Thompson.

According to the Student Employment Office's Hourly Rate Chart, the lowest salary that can be paid to a student employee is $7.15. Ashwood said that these lowest-paying jobs are very rare but are most likely to be found in Firestone or Marquand.

"These are sitting jobs, maybe at a library, where the student is able to do other tasks — jobs where all that is needed is a presence," she said.

Though many students take jobs as part of a financial aid package or as a way to earn extra cash, others seek employment for more unconventional reasons.

Coleman Richdale '07 said that in his sophomore year, he chose to deliver newspapers as a specific life experience. "I probably just wanted to say I had a paper route," he said. "It's something I could tell my grandchildren."

While some students, like Richdale, seek campus employment for quirky reasons, others have quirky experiences on the job. Owusu recalled one Firestone visitor who was particularly pleased with his help.

"I was working one day when this lady walks into the microforms section with a problem which she requested my help with," he said. "She is a publisher, and she wanted to find this very ancient 18th century English book to republish."

Owusu was able to find and copy the book, a text the publisher said she had sought for months, in three days. Her name, it turned out, was Dorothy McCosh, and she was a member of the family for whom McCosh Health Center is named in addition to being a regular donor to the University.

"She came back to the library and saw me working, and she [thanked] me for my help and the document I found for her," he said. "She said she was so excited and grateful that she promised to increase her annual contribution to the University."

"That is my best experience ever on the job," Owusu added.