Work Studies - Anisa Anuar

During the summer after my freshman year, I participated in Northeastern's summer summer semester - NUTerm. I had plans to attend an art dialogue in Ireland during the second half of the summer semester, and each student was entirely responsible for their own materials. Art supplies were expensive during the school year alone, so I decided to pick up another work study so I could comfortably afford the materials (and enjoy my time in Ireland, of course).

Finding a temporary job on such short notice was challenging, especially since I still had to work around my class schedule and existing job. When I came across the job posting for the MFA library, everything started to piece together. The position was flexible, and I was only expected to come in as often as my schedule allowed. On the days I came into the library for work, I would have classes in the morning, eat a quick meal, walk over to the library, and spend a couple of hours surrounded by endless shelves of books on art and history.

The library offered limited access to MFA employees and researchers, which meant that few people dropped by, especially during my shifts, which were towards closing time. Those who did come by the library always had interesting requests on books to check out - each person looking for a different familiar artist or period in art history.

One of the defining aspects of my experience working at the library was definitely my manager, Paul, who always had me working on a new task. My days never felt repetitive or tiresome, as I was always learning or trying something new, whether it was restoring labels on books with fragile spines or transporting books from the library to the museum. The head librarian, Hee Jung, helped guide me whenever Paul was out, and her energy and compassion always boosted my spirits.

Even on the days when I did more "menial" tasks, like re-shelving books that were returned, I found ways to make the process more rewarding and satisfying. I would see how efficiently I could re-shelve them or if I could make a single route around the library, without having to cross paths over to somewhere I'd already been. I would find myself getting excited for the "big" books that got returned, because it meant using the rolling shelves and finding myself down a row I'd never seen before.

I could imagine a role like that not being for everyone. But compared to the fast-paced, high-energy environment of working on a small game design team, the library was a welcome refresh. I enjoyed every moment of it and would be pleased to find myself working in a library once again in the future.

Administrative Office Assistant

NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY KHOURY COLLEGE OF COMPUTER SCIENCES — BOSTON, MA — SEPTEMBER 2017 - DECEMBER 2018

In an effort to make the most out of my freshman year of college, I spent my first summer taking extra classes, attending an art dialogue in Ireland, and taking on a second work study on top of my year-round job. After all of this, I visited Malaysia for the first time since I was a baby. I'd had a busy year, and when I came back to campus, I found myself struggling again to afford class materials or to spend time with friends doing anything that would cost money. This semester, I ended up taking a third job on top of the game design team and the MFA library position. My friend recommended that I work at the advising office for our College, as it was relatively low commitment and flexible - exactly what I needed.

During my time working in the Khoury advising office, I ended up assisting faculty with organizing student programs or preparing for lectures that I had attended less than a year prior. I was able to take a look behind the scenes at what planning these events and seminars looked like, and played a part in ensuring they went smoothly.

The biggest challenge of this position for me were the days when my manager Elizabeth was out, leaving the main reception desk as my responsibility. This meant taking calls and redirecting people to the correct person, greeting visitors and confirming appointments. Before college, I was incredibly shy and soft-spoken, and even after a year of being at Northeastern, I still had a hard time coming out of my shell. Customer service was a job that I was relatively unfamiliar with, as all my roles prior involved minimal interaction outside of my direct team. Working at the advising office forced me to assume the receptionist role and sit up straight, smile, and know exactly what to say at all times. It definitely required a lot of practice, but eventually I got the hang of it!

Early Education STEM Program Teacher

HAYNES EARLY EDUCATION CENTER — ROXBURY CROSSING, MA — SEPTEMBER 2018 - DECEMBER 2018

Before college, I volunteered at New Haven Reads, a non-profit organization near my hometown. As a volunteer, I was assigned a fourth-grader and a fifth-grader, each of whom I individually and directly worked with to improve their reading levels to match their peers. At first, I worried that I wouldn't be able to keep the students interested in learning, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that they both were actually extremely motivated to learn - they just hadn't had the proper resources, like the interactive computer program we taught them with or the range of books we read with them. It was such an incredible opportunity to be part of each student's journey and offer them that which they were lacking. I loved seeing the excitement on their faces when something finally clicked for them that they'd been struggling with for weeks and felt overjoyed when they asked me to teach them something new or beyond the lesson plan for the day.

Fast forward to a few years later, when I came across the job listing posted by the Latino STEM Alliance to the Northeastern student employment site. They were looking for college students interested in preparing a curriculum that would help young students of color learn STEM through robotics. It was an opportunity to provide advanced technology to students who may otherwise have had little-to-no exposure to robotics or engineering and I was captivated. My middle-to-high school was populated almost entirely with students from low-income backgrounds, and this program was oriented towards schools exactly like that. Moreover, my school was specialized in engineering and science education, but since it was new, we relied heavily on gracious donors and sponsors to have access to resources or technology for higher learning. As a result, I had access to so much that my peers at other local schools did not have, and I know that contributed significantly to my education. Knowing all this, a constant drive that I have is to give back to my community or to others like it as others have given to me.

Through the program, I was assigned to a first-grade class at the Haynes Early Education Center. With the help of their last period teacher, I taught them how to program robots to draw shapes or navigate mazes made from recycled materials. We used a type of robot called the Sphero SPRK+ that is controlled entirely by an app. The app handled movement in a few ways. In one way, a user could enter a list of commands into a program which, once run, has the robot follow each command in order. In another way, a user could just draw the path out for the robot, then it will follow it. The way that the first graders preferred to control the robot - and probably the most chaotic way - was to have a "joystick" on the screen and a compass. The "joystick" controlled the direction the robot moved in and the compass dictated which direction was "forward."

Every single student was so fascinated by the little mechanical spheres. Since we had more students than robots, some students had to pair up and control the robot together. A big part of my job was monitoring the pairings and making sure that they used their time fairly, and that each student had similar exposure to the robots. (Each week, I would have a different student asking me if they could have a robot all to themselves - and having to say no was always so painful!)

The work I did at Haynes was beautiful and fulfilling, and I wish I had the time to continue working there. Because of my enrollment pattern, I only had the one semester to work with the students, as I was starting my second co-op in January. I wasn't able to stick around for their end-of-year science fair to see them turn their robots into projects, but I loved and constantly appreciate the time I got to spend there.

Laser Cutter Monitor

NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY MAKERSPACE — BOSTON, MA — OCTOBER 2018 - DECEMBER 2018

In June of 2018, I had just finished my first co-op at Nokia Technologies. It was my first time working without the added responsibility of classes. I also had decided to move off-campus into more affordable housing. At this point, I was reaching better financial stability than my first and second year. However, I still didn't feel comfortable not working - like it was irresponsible of me to rely entirely on the money I had made during co-op (which wasn't all too much, considering a lot of it went towards the apartment deposits).

I had been working at Paidia Studios for a while at this point- even part-time during my first co-op for consulting. I decided it was time for a change of pace and to try something new. In the Fall of 2018, I picked up two new part-time jobs - one being the STEM teaching position, and the other monitoring the laser cutter at Northeastern's Makerspace.

This work study was probably the most fun and the least demanding. I had never used a laser cutter before and I found the machine to be intriguing and beautiful. I was able to learn about the software within one short training session, and handled student requests relatively easily. The space was hardly ever busy with more than a couple of students at a time except for during midterm or final projects. When the space was emptier, I would use the scraps left over from student projects to make little trinkets as gifts for my friends (personalized to their interests, of course). Once the space got busy, I focused on taking student requests and got a close look at what the 3D art class projects were like.

The End of an Era

"ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END"

Fall 2018 was my last semester taking on part-time jobs - for several reasons. The most significant factor in me being able to give up my part-time work was my second co-op at Intuit. Since they provided housing, transportation, and a steep wage, I managed to save up a lot and didn't have to worry about money the next semester. I also found that my work was taking away from my education - I often struggled to make time for my classes because I was working. On the off weeks, I would be able to get work done for my classes at a lot of my part-time jobs when student requests were low, but the busy weeks for my jobs aligned with the busy weeks for my classes. The workload quickly became overwhelming, and there came a point where I had to drop one of my courses in order to handle all of my commitments.

The best decision for me here was to take a semester off from working so I could focus entirely on classes and professional development. I worked on redesigning my portfolio and put much more time into my class projects. I always look back and wish I could've spent maybe one more semester working at the library or the laser cutter monitor or with the first grade students, but I don't regret a single decision I made. I loved every experience, but despite it all, the end had to come eventually. After all of this, I have so many stories to tell from each "work study era" and I find myself with more talents than I would've expected to be leaving college with. And what more could I really ask for?

A Brief Overview of My Work Studies

Web Development and Game Design

PAIDIA STUDIOS — BOSTON, MA — AUGUST 2016 - MARCH 2018

Library Assistant

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS — BOSTON, MA — MAY 2017 - DECEMBER 2017