This year, Bethel College students were given the option to waive their Employment Experience requirement.
The Vice President of Employment Experience and Student Success, Joseph Husong, says, “Students could ask for a one-year waiver from participating in Employment Experience.” This means that this year, instead of being required to do Employment Experience, students had the option to waive it.
A drawback with waiving Employment Experience is that students don’t receive the $2,500.00 grant. For some students, this grant is what keeps them in Employment Experience. Malaysia Larque, a junior working as the social media manager for the girls soccer team, says she did it because, “It dropped the cost of paying for school.”
Sophomore Liam Ortman, working with the maintenance department, agrees with Larque and says, “I’m sticking with Employment Experience because I want the grant.” According to many students, the grant is the main reason they choose to continue with Employment Experience.
On the other hand, sophomore Mara Oswald chose to waive her Employment Experience. She says, “Balancing life as a student as well as a student athlete, Employment Experience is just too much work.”
The life of a Bethel student has been known to be especially busy, often coined as “Bethel Busy.” Employment Experience adds five hours of work to a Bethel student’s already busy week and schedule. For some students, like Oswald, it can be too much.
When asked why students were given the option to waive Employment Experience, Husong says, “We’ve had capacity issues for a while now. We keep adding classes to the Employment Experience program. However, we haven’t added staff in order to keep up with the increasing number of students.”
This has been an ongoing issue from last year as well. In order to address this problem, this year students could use their off-campus job as their Employment Experience job. For example, education students were given the opportunity to become a paraeducator for the district as well as get Employment Experience credit.
There are positives and negatives with waiving Employment Experience. Students who waive Employment Experience do not receive the $2,500.00 grant, but may have more time for other responsibilities and activities, while students who continue with Employment Experience can receive the grant while gaining work experience.