You Better Werk, Bitch
It’s 10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. You’ve just finished your morning shift at the part-time job that constantly rosters you on during university hours, and now have to boost it up from Lambton Quay to Kelburn Campus for the last two hours of your three hour (unrecorded) workshop. After that, it’s onto your freelance gig due the next morning, which takes priority over the 3000-word essay you haven’t started.
If you're reading Salient, this won’t be unfamiliar. Students gotta hustle, and hustle hard.
Kim K may have said no one wants to work anymore, but if she did a freaky Friday with a Wellington student, she would combust. We might have graduated now, but while we studied, we didn’t know anyone who wasn’t working 10-30+ hours on top of full time uni. Money (or lack thereof) is constantly on our minds. We require money to cover rent, bills, food, and the necessity of making our lives somewhat enjoyable. Student loan or allowance barely covers rent for most students, making work—and most likely a side hustle—unavoidable.
Alongside uni, we have respectively worked as a kitchen hand, retail assistant, bobarista, salon receptionist, waitress, event prep, podcast manager, social media manager, cashier, ID checker, fruit picker, NCEA tutor, lighting technician, biosecurity advocate, deckhand, office assistant, barhand, freelancing writer and photographer, staff writer, and paid and unpaid intern. Classic Capricorn placements, always hustling (Maia: Capricorn Mercury, Capricorn Rising, and Fran: Capricorn Sun and Mercury).
To make study liveable, we have to grind. The stress of ever-shifting priorities is real. What will you choose: work, study, or your social/love life? We take on the shittiest of part time jobs because we are desperate to eat something other than a cup of noodles. We work to fund study, and we study to find future jobs (if our BA can even find us a job above minimum wage). That’s capitalism, baby. Maybe it’s Maybelline, or maybe it’s the system. Does uni have to be this way?
If study was better funded, we might escape the juggling act. Student loans and allowance should be enough to cover our living expenses. Fees free education was on the board not so long ago. Those starting uni in 2019, like Fran, were the first to receive fees free. At the time, we were hopeful that by the end it would all be wiped.
For now, I guess we keep hustling.
In this issue, Phoebe tackles what is making the Stilettos so Fired Up in her report of the Calendar Girls strikes. Bridget looks at the uncomfortable realities of students working gym receptionist jobs. Emily writes about the dilemma of facing customers on behalf of a disreputable brand. Kiran speaks to the stigmas around being a beneficiary.
The Salient News Team has done it again, with Zoë spilling the tea on the university’s deficit and the latest developments in the Vic Books saga. Niamh unpacks the recent teacher strikes, and Ethan chats with politicians about student allowance and loan living cost increases. Fran makes her news debut, reporting on vandalism on Scarborough Terrace.
Good luck hustlers! Slip, slop, slap, and slay.