For the past few years, I went to university open house events as a prospective student. This year, it was different. I was there as a student helper. My role there was to usher people into the function room for the talks and out to the other levels and talks. However like all jobs, there are always hidden roles and responsibilities. [Wanted to link a video on the above sentence from TED.com, but it was since a year since I last saw it. Sorry about that.]
What they tell you about the job: Ushering and a bit of crowd controlling. Especially at the end of the talk.
That is the main point of me being there. The number of prospective students and parents attending talks is more than ever. We had to turn away people from entering the function room due to the lack of capacity, even the standing capacity. I feel rather bad to turn away people from the last talk at the last day. But hey, no worries, there were information booths where questions and doubts can be answered.
What they did not tell you about the job: Co-workers who are jokers and interactions with the prospective students and parents that are quite enlightening.
The co-workers part is minor, but it makes the job easier. There were many Year 0s and 1s helping out. It made a great time making friends, enquiries on being a Year 1, and helped to pass time easier. The interactions part was a great experience actually. Me and another guy, Samuel had to turn away one parent from the last School of Economics talk due to lack of capacity in the function room. Instead, we kindly suggested to her to proceed to level three for more information from the faculty booth. However she said that she had just came from there and that she wanted to listen in to the talk.
So instead, she had us talking about studying here and about choosing business (Samuel is in there) and balancing out CCA commitments. Apparently she was worried that by coming to SMU, her child may invest more time in CCA than in studying. Being Year 0 students, what we could share was limited to stories that seniors has told us and whatever we could come out with. Finally, all we could say that time management will be critical in anything we do and peer pressure here will help to keep things in check.
What went through my mind after chatting with her were two thoughts. One, NS did really mature me in a way or another. I had the “CCA comes first!” mentality that her child has now when I was still an enlistee. The thought process now is: “I like being in my CCA. But without the grades means not being able to go to school. Not being able to go to school means not being able to enjoy my time in the CCA.” This is a huge difference.Two, I am still handicapped by the fact that I do not have much working experience to make a god and persuasive argument.
OH well. I guess this can be gained in time to come.
Picture credits: SMUAdmissions