By Margaret Ernst

Diana Park is only a freshman, but on Wednesday night she is troubleshooting computer problems at Bryn Mawr’s help desk, in a job usually reserved for upperclassmen.

“The first week was scary,” said Park. “But maybe that’s just like any other job.”

Her job, however, is not like any other job for a freshman. Park is one of 13 freshmen promised federal work-study at Bryn Mawr who were put on a waiting list for jobs after initial registration in late August. Freshmen at Bryn Mawr are usually only permitted to work in Dining Services, but there were not enough positions to go around this year.

“I was a little frustrated, I have to admit,” Park said. She was looking forward to a job to help her parents with expenses.

Even though there are fewer freshmen who qualify for work-study in the Class of 2013 in comparison to last year’s freshman class, but according to Clare Wolfenden ‘10, Dining Services Student Coordinator, more upperclassmen returned to work in Dining Services this year and more freshman showed up to sign up for a dining hall job in September.

Concerned she wouldn’t find something, Park applied to several “entry-level” jobs throughout campus and was eventually offered a position at the help desk.

“There were not many jobs posted I felt I was qualified for,” Park said. Many of the jobs posted on the Student Employment website require experience or specialty knowledge, such as Teaching Assistant positions.

Since September, work-study freshmen on the waiting list have been hired in a range of other departments on campus, or were offered jobs in Dining Services when positions opened up. According to Lisa Zernicke, Director of Student Employment, Bryn Mawr is looking at options outside of Dining Services in order to employ freshmen in the future.

Zernicke says she and Bernie Chung-Templeton, Director of Dining Services, will be looking at the number of students on work-study in the Class of 2014 in order to prepare for next fall. In the past, there has been no communication between the Financial Aid office, the Student Employment Office and Dining Services prior to job registration.

Yet Zernicke admitted that the registration process is always a “numbers game.”

“We can estimate the ‘x’ number of positions they need [in Dining Services], but we can’t estimate the ‘x’ number of students who will need to work or want to work,” Zernicke said.

Even though work-study freshmen are required to work in Dining Services, the department has never made a distinction between those who are on work-study and those who are not during job registration. That could change, said Chung-Templeton, but she is afraid of the implications.

Students raised concerns five years ago about the requirement for work-study freshmen to take jobs in Dining Services, charging that the requirement separates students along class lines. Even though the policy was, and still is, that any freshman that wants a job must work in Dining Services regardless of their financial aid package, Chung-Templeton says the issue of class is still sensitive.

“[It’s] one of the things I’m going to be paying attention to,” she said.

Chung-Templeton says she wants to be “very careful” to make sure that everyone who wants to work in Dining Services will be able to next year, but the “first-order” concern of administrators is to assure that all freshmen on work-study get jobs when they arrive on campus.

Lindsay Turr ‘11, Head Supervisor at Erdman, remembers that the beginning of the year was difficult for freshmen workers and supervisors both.

“We couldn’t offer people 8 hours a week, which sucks, because you need the money, and you need to be able to pay off your tuition," said Turr.

As of Monday, however, an additional 2-hour shift was made available to student workers during weekdays, for cleaning and prepping. Since the beginning of the school year, a new full shift in the dish room at Haffner is now totally staffed by students.

Terah Edun ‘10, Haffner Head Supervisor, said that freshmen have contacted her saying they need a third or fourth shift because their parents have been hit so hard by the recession.

Chung-Templeton and Zernicke foresee a different kind of job registration next fall: a job fair, versus sign-up sheets for the dining halls, café and catering services. The Athletics Department has always been interested in hiring freshmen as lifeguards, said Zernicke, and the Civic Engagement Office has expressed interest in hiring freshmen to work in communities off-campus.

For freshmen, working in Dining Services has often served as a “second Customs group”, according to Edun. Like the Customs program, which serves as a first-year orientation, working in Dining Services exposes freshmen to a group of people outside their classes and often fosters relationships with upperclassmen.

Park said she does not feel like she is on her own as a freshman at the tech bar. Seniors, many of whom have been working the job for three years, have been very helpful.

Yet her friends in Dining Services have been telling her how much they love their jobs, she said.

“I think that if I had ended up working there, I would have probably really liked it,” said Park.

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