A common part of filling out FAFSA involves filling out whether or not you want funding in the form of work-study. If you have ever been eligible and said no to this, I have no idea what is wrong with you. To be able to work for your funding, in my opinion, is favorable in comparison to just being handed it and having to pay it back later. Work-study actually gives you the opportunity to enter the workforce and to gain experience for your resume and for your life in general.

I held work-study positions every single year during my time at Western Michigan University. During high school, I never had an “official job.” I spent my time focusing on sports, A.P. classes, and other extracurricular activities I was involved in. I had some small summer jobs, but nothing worthwhile, and definitely nothing that I wanted to put on my professional resume. So, when I got my first position at WMU as a residence hall front desk receptionist, I was excited to finally be entering the job force and gaining the experiences that would make me a desirable employee.

I have to admit, I don’t want to go into a field where I am just a receptionist in an office or for a building. It has never been what I ultimately wanted to do with my life. However, the front desk job was the best starting position for me. I was a new student and living on campus, knowing basically no one, and being at the front desk allowed me to get to know a majority of the people living in my building. By the end of the spring semester, I knew almost everyone on a first name basis. It allowed me to sit and work with fellow students and get to know those around me on a more personal level, which is something I really appreciate looking back on my time at the desk.

There were many lessons and skills I learned during my time there. I developed a very strong sense of customer service. As someone who has to speak to hundreds of students during a single shift, it all came down to how they felt about me. Was I someone they enjoyed talking to and dealing with? Or was I someone they simply tried to avoid? Developing the ability to talk to and show respect to everyone made the job easier and during my late night shifts, I found myself with people just visiting the front desk to talk to me.

This has proven to be a great skill to have going into my future positions. My second year at WMU, I decided to move on and be the front desk receptionist for the Department of History. Although, I still didn’t want to be a receptionist, being a history major made me really interested in this position. During that school year, I made connections within the department and found myself surrounded by people who shared my same passion for history. I continued using my customer service skills and developed them in a more professional setting. I found myself working with the department with events and lectures.

However, coming into my third year at WMU, I had planned on staying and working as a receptionist for the Department of History. That was until I found a posting to be a Writer/Editor for the Office of Marketing and Communications for the College of Arts and Sciences. My ultimate goal and preferred career once I graduated was in the editorial field. I went to an interview, just seeing how things would go. When I found out that they wanted to hire me for the position, I had a difficult decision to make between working a new job and staying in the one where I already was expected.

Ultimately, it came down to what I really wanted to do with my life. So, I accepted the writer/editor position. My customer service skills helped me when it came to interviewing students and staff at WMU to write feature articles on them. I found that a lot of the writing classes I had taken in the previous years had prepared me very well for the editing of the WMU website. When I wasn’t spending my time learning the exact ins and outs of the writing format for the articles, I focused on editing different department pages to match WMU’s writing standard.

I honestly couldn’t have been happier with my position and the office I was working in. The atmosphere was exactly what I had been looking for during the first two years. This was the first position that started shaping my resume towards what I wanted to represent to future companies. This position started helping me sooner than I had expected. By having this on my resume, I was able to land the position as the Co-Editor-in-Chief for a literary journal for WMU.

I’m now in the same positon working as a writer/editor for the same office. However, my position and responsibilities are expanding and covering more areas. I have even been moved into my own personal office. I’m hoping that I’m in a transitioning stage that will lead into a full time position.

Work-study has helped me develop the skills and connections that have set me up for the success in my life. I have worked other positions outside of the university and they all work off of the original skills I learned during my earlier positions. I found myself in some extremely amazing opportunities. If I had sat back and ignored these positions around me, I wouldn’t be where I am today. By working on campus, I had a lot of choices to find the field that I want to work in in the future. The university has openings in all different fields. It just takes students who go out of their way to make the future into what they want it to be.