Between obligatory trips to Leonardo's, the clicker that always gets lost, a few late-night stumbles into Pita Pit and cover charges for Friday night, many students realize they're going to need some extra cash in college.
Gainesville is a college town, and there are a lot of work opportunities on and off campus. However, there are also a lot of students competing for those jobs.
Art history junior Lauren Klein applied for about 15 on-campus jobs in the spring. She used www.jobs.ufl.edu to find open positions but never heard back from any of them.
Klein also applied for jobs at the Reitz Union's website, www.union.ufl.edu/jobs. She said she got three interviews from that site until she found her job as a studio assistant at the Arts and Crafts Center in the Reitz Union basement.
"You definitely have to be really persistent if you're applying for a job on campus," Klein said. "A lot of people want those jobs."
Klein recommends students not doing work study look for on-campus jobs at the Reitz Union, because some of the openings on UF's general job website are limited to students doing work study. She said she likes the location convenience of an on-campus job.
Political science and women's studies junior Molly Ryan has held three jobs since she started at UF. She has been working at The Gelato Company downtown since March.
"From day one, I always had a job because I needed one," Ryan said.
She said if a freshman doesn't need a job right away, she would recommend waiting a few weeks to get comfortable with college life.
Alisa Kenney, owner of the two Coffee Culture cafes in Gainesville, said having work experience and customer service and presentation skills are qualities she looks for in new employees.
She also recommends that students looking for jobs actually go to the business to talk with a manager instead of calling and asking about openings.
"If you're so lazy you're gonna call me, I'm not gonna hire you," Kenney said.
