After a month of revisiting childhood cities — Hong Kong, Beijing, Macau — I am back in Vancouver and the Arts Co-op office to finish up my job as Student Advisor.
It’s been just over two weeks at work and already I can tell that the summer term is going to be very different to the winter one.
From January to April, the number of students coming in for advising sessions and application reviews is pretty steady and most of my time was eaten up by immediate tasks: a student who needs help with a mock interview, the pile of applications to review before sending them on to employers, a barrage of emails to reply to.
Enter summer. Hardly anyone is on campus. The torrent of student enquiries has reduced to a trickle. All the projects I had on the backburner are now getting checked off, one at a time. I plug my headphones into the computer and listen to 8tracks.com while typing a profile, designing a survey, or researching social media strategies.
And I’m helping to hire my replacement for the Fall term. Yes, the Student Advisor position with the UBC Arts Co-op Program is up for grabs on Symplicity for the Fall term — and I’m frankly jealous of whoever gets the job.
Fall is going to be such a fun term — September is when Arts Co-op recruits new students, so there will be lots of activity around Imagine Day and info sessions throughout the month. You’ll get to meet and talk to so many new people, there’s no way your public speaking skills won’t improve. You’ll also get to sit in on the interview and selection process for new students and find out what the hiring process is like. How many students get to do that before graduation?
Then you’ll be presenting at the first pre-employment training conference for new co-op students in November. You’ll give oh-so-excellent advice on resumes and cover letters (and it will be excellent, because you got this job, didn’t you? ;)).
But best of all, you’ll get to work with some of the nicest, most supportive and friendly colleagues it is possible to have. Everyone in the Arts Co-op office has welcomed me and made me feel like a valued member of the team. I’m going to miss the office dreadfully — so much so that I think I need to do a little preemptive grieving now.
