By Arden Berry | Staff Writer
The Career Center held a part-time job fair on Sept. 3, aiming to help students looking to gain skills and experience without having to work full-time. The jobs available included on-campus and local off-campus jobs.
Kristen Howerton, a career success professional, said that while other career events provide full-time employment and post-graduation opportunities that apply mainly to upperclassmen, this event includes part-time jobs, internships, volunteering and shadowing opportunities for both upperclassmen and underclassmen.
“We’re glad that it is doing well in its second year,” Howerton said. “We did this last year and it was successful. We had several employers who wanted to come back. They were really excited about the students that they got from last year’s event.”
Tomball junior Amal Sarwar said she was looking for part-time work or an internship in healthcare to pair with her psychology major.
“In the past two years I’ve been really busy with my studies,” Sarwar said. “I switched majors from pre-med to psych. And now that I finally get the opportunity, I’m going to be able to look at more part-time opportunities to take.”
Hewitt senior Bekah Briscoe, who works for Magnolia Soap & Bath Co., said her experience working part-time as a student has been “absolutely amazing.”
“It’s not that far, and they’re very, very understanding,” Briscoe said. “Like they’ll ask me when my tests are so I can make sure I’m not scheduled then and stuff like that. So they are very understanding and very workable, which I think is one of the biggest pieces that’s necessary as a student in a part-time job.”
Briscoe said she enjoys this flexibility as well as the job itself.
“It is the most fast-paced, fun job,” Briscoe said. “No day looks the same, no minute looks the same. You’re making different things all the time.”
Just as students came to the fair looking for local job openings, these job openings came looking for local students. Hope Nelms, marketing director at Andy’s Frozen Custard, said the company was looking for students specifically to work at football games.
“I just think there’s a specific passion that comes with being a student, especially at a university like this,” Nelms said. “So when it comes to being at the game and being in the presence of other Baylor fans, you already understand the culture and what’s needed. And so it’s really fun to watch fellow students interact with each other, whether that’s in business or sharing a fun comment about your team. It just makes a fun connection, makes it more local and that’s what we want to do.”
