I joined U of W in 2019 as a BSc. Mathematics student. As an international student, I had a limit of 20-hours of work off-campus but no limit on-campus. When I noticed some of my seniors working at the university as teaching assistants or markers and many other positions, I developed interest in getting one of those positions as well and thus began my search.
Student jobs are posted on U of W employment website and when I read through the requirements, I realized that I must have completed 30 credit hours of course work before applying and thus, I waited till I was in my second year to start applying. I soon realized that some instructors can make exceptions and offer you the job even before you complete 30 credit hours as long as you had good academic standing in the course. Yes, having a good academic standing in the course that you want to mark is essential too.
So, before the start of my first sem of 2nd year, I applied to various marker positions for Math and Stats courses that I had completed in my first year and I got the opportunity to mark 3 courses in that sem. They do not interview you for marker positions.
Alongside these, I had also applied for Student Mentor position for which I gave an interview before getting the job. And since these were contract positions, I would apply every year for other roles.
Throughout my time, I worked as Marker, Exam Proctor, Student Mentor, Student Ambassador and Awards Student Assistant. Let’s see what kind of work I did in these roles.
Marker: There could be multiple markers for one course depending on class size. Once we reach an assignment deadline and professor closes submissions, the professor would share the answer key for the exam. We were given special access to crowdmark where we could see submitted answers for each student. We would mark the assignment one question at a time instead of one student at a time. So, for example, I would mark for question 1 and I’d go through everybody’s answer one before moving to the next question. Now, while we mark, crowdmark would calculate how much time we spend on the marking and we would submit time to the professor as our worked hours in order to get paid.
So, this was quite a flexible job. I would work anytime anywhere and submit marked assignments as soon as we could. We were paid minimum wage and it only took us about 4-5 hours to complete one assignment. So, I was not making a lot of money out of it, but it was nice to put that money in savings without having to budget the income that I was receiving from my off-campus part-time job.
Exam Proctor: I didn’t specially apply for this position but was asked to proctor some exams by my professor for the Math Stats department. This was during covid, so we were online invigilators. We would have a list of students appearing for the exam and we’d observe all the students, checking for any disturbances or distractions and make notes for each student, even when they asked to go away to use the washrooms. If we did find somebody talking or looking around a lot, or unnecessary typing, we would report that to the professor with time stamps so that they could review it later. We were paid for the duration of the exam.
Student Mentor: When I joined the university, IIRSS department offered a mentor (a senior student) for me who would guide me through the university processes and help me schedule courses or share any information vital to uni life. I could do meetings with him and contact him if I had any questions. When I reached my second year, I knew I would like to help and share my experience with the new coming students. I had two mentees who were still in India and I would do zoom meetings with them and answer any questions they had about the university, student life, courses, about Winnipeg weather and just about anything they wanted to know. Apart from that, as a group of mentors we would also host virtual events, game nights and other activities. It was a rewarding and fulfilling position, but I only worked for one year.
Student Ambassador: For my third year, I applied for the student ambassador position. I was interviewed for the position and questions were mainly to see how much knowledge I hold about the university and its services. This position was different from student mentor in a way that we were not assigned one individual person to help but we would help the recruitment department with collective student events. So, for example we would help in orientations and conduct campus tours for future and prospect students. Students would come in alone or with one guardian and we would take them on a tour around the campus, show them study spots, campus offices, classes, important rooms and fun stuff as well.
Every year, when new semester started, we were given shifts to sit at the student table to provide information to new students and help them find their classes for their very first week. I was part of a great team. I made friends along the way and we learned from each other experiences. Definitely a 10/10 recommendation for any student thinking about working in that team.
Awards Student Assistant: This was a position that I got through the Work-Study Programs offered by the university. As you can read on the website, Work-Study programs offer valuable experience with flexible hours that fit around our school schedule. It can also provide work experience in our study area, because many positions are program related. The website provides all the information that you need to know about this program.
I applied for this position with the Awards and Financial department and gave an interview. This was a very flexible position, and my duties included some individual projects to improve the look of the awards’ website page. The program coordinators who were my supervisors would do regular meetings to explain the project and its expectations and I was given a deadline for each task. After that, I would just work on my own time, whenever I could and keep a track of all the hours I worked and then submit them weekly in order to get paid.
This one was a very interesting experience, and the projects definitely took time to complete. I got chance to gather, research and analyze the information, and then present it in a way that would be easier for students to access on the website. The supervisors very amazing and super helpful and I thoroughly enjoyed working with them.
And just with that, I reached the end of my course and finished up with the student positions. I got my post-graduation work permit and have been working full-time as Personnel Manager since then and all these positions definitely gave me confidence in my other off-campus part time roles that I had during my uni time. Check out my other post ‘’My 12 job roles explored” to read about all my off-campus jobs.
If you have any questions and would like to know more, feel free to leave a comment or contact me.
Thank you for reading and hope this inspired you.
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