Posts tagged work study
Hi! I answered a similar question last month, so I’m just gonna give you the link to that here. Working on campus is 100% doable, and most on-campus employers make a concerted effort to set aside shifts for freshmen.
-Eric ‘13
There are lots of job opportunities on campus—in the Dining Hall, in the Student Center, in the Rec Center, in the Library, in the Bookstore, in the Post Office, in various offices in VAPA, in the FWT office…the list goes on and on. Bennington provides resources to try and ensure that all students who want a job can get a job. There are also places to work off campus; I’ve known students who have worked as baristas, caterers and artist’s assistants off campus during the school year. (But the school doesn’t help you get those gigs.) You might not always get all the hours you want, but if you want a job at Bennington, you’ll be able to get one. And priority is often given to freshmen, so don’t sweat it too much!
-Eric
The word from Student Life is sometime in mid-July, barring any sorta delays. So, probably not for at least another week or two. Just a heads-up, though: in Admissions, I/we only know as much about housing/roommates/classes as the incoming freshmen do, so we will probably never be a great resource to ask about things like that.
Your best bet (assuming that you’re an incoming freshman) for that kind of information is either to ask around on the Class of 2016 Facebook group or call the office of Student Life at (802)-440-4330. I’d say give it another couple of weeks before you start making phone calls though - it’ll all be worth it, I promise.
-Evan ‘13
One of the great things about a liberal arts education is that it is so much more than career training, so the fields alumni get jobs in are incredibly broad, and although you can trace the path from education to career, it is rarely a straight path that could have been predicted.
So it is somewhat difficult to develop statistics. For instance, my dream is to be a performing musician, and that’s a big part of what I study here, but the two jobs I’m most likely try to get coming out of Bennington are as a carpenter in a theatre or as an admissions counselor at a college (if I don’t end up at McDonalds), both of which are in some way related to my time at Bennington, but are certainly not what I study. If I was going to Med school, on the other hand, there would be a clear path laid out for me after graduation, and it would be easy to gauge my success.
That being said, we wish we had statistics for you, and we’re working on putting some together in the next few years, but for now, here are some alumni stories you can check out.
The added advantage you get at Bennington (which we also don’t have statistics about) is that because of FWT, you leave college with at least four (more like 6-10) positions on your resume that relate to your field of study (usually where you want to get a job), and I have at least three or four friends who graduated in the last couple of years who got jobs after graduation at places they had done a FWT.
Ok – deep breath – second part of your question – Priority is given to those students with Work Study, so you’ll have to scavenge a bit more than them, but besides duking it out for a position in the Dining Hall, there are a number of jobs on campus (mostly student leadership positions of some sort) that go through a rigorous hiring process and try to find the person best suited for the job, so you’re on equal footing with Work Study students for those jobs.
Liam
