Spring 2020

3 Minutes Read

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Summer ended and I was off to South Korea for my study abroad program. I’ll end up writing about my time abroad something in the future. For now, just know that I decided to shorten my time abroad from one year to one semester. Which, was a great move by myself I might add because once we transitioned to 2020, covid hit the world very hard and I would have been forced to come back home by my study abroad program anyways. I landed back in California at the very end of December so I was back in Chico for like a week and a half before I got an email with a job offer (which was a lot sooner than I expected).

Tray Robinson was the Director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at CSU, Chico. He would later move on to a new one at Butte College. Tray was involved on many many different roles and spaces around Chico State and he was someone very respected. I was very fortunate to have him as my professor for my Introduction course for Multicultural and Gender Studies back in Spring 2018. The things we talked about and read about in that course fascinated me and I would always go to his office hours and discuss more about it with him. Over time, Tray became one of my favorite teachers and a mentor that I am so so grateful for. He taught me many things that I continue to carry with me, whether that is finding a balance in my life between all the stuff that I do and get involved with, to just keeping a strong mindset to continue to work and grind for a better future.

So, a week and a half after I came back from South Korea, Tray reached out and offered me a job as a Student Assistant for the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. It was great timing because a week later, I started getting some emails from different places on campus looking to hire and I was recommended by a few people. My role was to work the front desk (doing clerical stuff), assist the advisors in the office on their projects and work if needed, and interview API faculties on campus to add to the Monthly Newsletter the office would put out each month for each specific community (API, African-American, Native-American, and Latinx). The job was fairly easy and there wasn’t anything too difficult in particular. The job taught me a lot in terms of how an office works in operating office machinery (printers, the lamentation of documents, office phones, etc) customer service, an improvement in multitasking, web design/development, and surprisingly interviewing skills.

I enjoyed it, however, I would say it is my least favorite job I’ve had on campus. Mainly because I do not get to work with students anymore and I desperately miss those interactions. I love working with students and sitting at a desk for the majority of the time just doesn’t cut it for me. The work hours were around my school schedule so I didn’t worry about hours and pay. The advisors and my coworkers were all fun and kind towards me so I didn’t have any trouble interacting with any of them. The office does great work and I hope the office expands even more on Chico State. Overall, it was a nice buffer job experience for me while I re-gathered myself coming back into American society, balancing school and life, and the shit storm that Covid-19 came with 2020 (transitioning to online learning) and as I get ready to apply to a job that I always wanted on campus.