In this post, I reflect on my experience working for the University of Iowa Campus Recreation and Wellness Center and discuss how finding a job on campus led me to connect to honors program students outside of academic situations. By working on campus, not only have I been able to broaden my connections on campus, but I found people with similar interests in the same program that I likely would not have met otherwise.
I first became a lifeguard in the summer of my junior year of high school. It was a pretty sweet gig, especially at the time. Who wouldn't want to get paid to sit around in the sun with a ton of their friends, just to people-watch all day? I certainly liked it, I made a lot of friends, and it was great money too.
Slowly, though, it got boring; it became more of a job, and it was harder to stay interested in watching a couple rowdy kids hit each other with kickboards or groups of older women doing water aerobics all day for hours at a time. I worked at the same pool all through my senior year of high school, rain or shine, and I really do mean rain or shine. Over time, my irritation grew. The job was slow, especially in the winter, and I found myself being made to do random tasks that were definitely outside my job description. I would kneel by the edge of the pool scrubbing tiles with a magic eraser or pulling out wads of hair from the drains lining every inch of that pool deck.
When I came to college, I vowed to find a better job, maybe one in a restaurant that I would get tipped for or something in retail that would broaden the experience on my resume. But the job market is hard, especially in a college town like Iowa City, where everyone wants a job, and everyone seems to have more experience than you. I would browse job websites for hours at a time, submitting my resume to random places, hoping that I would hear back, even if it meant a rejection.
Second semester rolled around, and I was still out of luck in the job department. I had applied to at least five different places at that point, and I was losing hope in branching away from lifeguarding. Finally, after coming across the same ad for a lifeguard position at the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center (CRWC), I caved and applied.
The interview was quick, and I got the job without breaking a sweat, which I expected. The job started slowly with me picking up as many shifts as possible, trying to establish myself and show my face as much as possible. For a while, I felt like an outsider, which made sense. I was the new kid, much like in the beginning of freshman year, only this time everyone else already knew each other.
The first friend I made, Olivia, happened to be a fellow honors student, and we bonded over that similarity pretty quickly. I hadn't made many friends in the honors program yet, and it was comforting to find someone who was navigating some of the same processes as I was. For a while, I felt at odds with the honors program. I didn't feel like I was as involved as I should have been, and I didn't feel like I had met anyone that I really got along with yet.
Olivia and I slowly became closer, and our bond grew beyond the similar link of the honors program. It was nice to have someone to go to events with, ask questions to, and plan experiential learning with. For the first time, I started to feel more like I belonged in the honors program — and more satisfied with my place here.
I kept working at the CRWC and slowly met more people but always kept in contact with Olivia. I started to realize that I could connect with people in the same academic circles with me on another basis and began to look at the whole concept of making friends in college differently. I spent so long worried that I wasn't going to connect with anyone in the honors program through honors-only events that I didn't think I would be able to meet those same people otherwise, and I am truly glad that I did.
The CRWC pool where Alex lifeguards
Lifeguards on duty
Alexandra (Alex) Lumish is a rising second-year student from the Bay Area, California. She is majoring in English and creative writing. In her time at the University of Iowa, Alex hopes to develop her nonfiction and journalistic writing skills in order to become a more well-rounded writer.
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