Part-time Job for an International Student
Part-time jobs are a very common topic among American students; however, as for international students from China, it is relatively scarce. Because most Chinese international students have a well-off family, they don’t want to spend their spare time to earn a small salary. Besides, due to the fact that they came to a different country not a long time ago, they might be afraid of communicating with local people and not familiar with working process.
At the beginning of the second quarter of my freshman year in my university, I sent an email to apply for a part-time job in one of our on-campus dining halls. After about one month, they replied to me and said that they had some jobs and if I was still interested, I could get that job. As an international student who never formally held a job, I was very excited when I read the email, because I would get my first salary in my life, and I could buy something from my own money!
After preparing all my documents for this part-time job, I began to work in our biggest dining hall. My job on the first day was serving food for 4 hours. This job was easy, because I just needed to put some vegetables into small bowls then smile. I didn’t even realize this was my job and I could earn income. So I talked with my friends and parents and told them that making money in America is so simple, and I was so happy that I could get this job. However, the second day entirely changed my mind. The supervisor took me to the kitchen and then my nightmare started. My job was washing and putting all pots back to different shelf. The worst thing for me was not that my pants, shoes, and T-shirt all got wet, it was that most of the pots were very heavy for me who is only 100 lb. Working four hours here is equal to going to the gym for four hours. After that night, I really hated pots and didn’t want to do that work anymore.
I called my mom who was always the best teacher for me, and complained a lot to her. She told me that I can change my standpoint to think about it like this: going to the gym is costly, but washing pots can let me exercise and earn a salary, which is killing two birds with one stone. Besides, if I can’t find a job after graduating, I know how to wash pots! Although that was just a joke, I felt better and didn’t resist very much. Even though I washed pots many times after that, I felt much better. Because when I was washing pots, I had more time to think about everything. Nowadays, using phones and computers have become the most time-consuming thing besides studying for students, so we spend less and less time on thinking which is a very important thing in our life. For me, this part-time job gradually become a relaxing time to think, which allows me to calm down and review my past and make plans for my future. Luckily, I chose to get out of my comfort zone and learned a lot from my part-time job.
Picture 1: https://goo.gl/images/Ye5Pjw
Picture 2: Credit to Evelyn Pan
