I bumped into a former student of mine named Phil today. I was pleasantly surprised to find that his spoken English skills had improved significantly. We talked about what we had been up to recently and he told me he was quite busy, balancing full time study and working at a convenience store in the city. For many international students like Phil, the issue of whether to take on a part-time job is quite difficult. For international students, what should be a relatively simple question is problematized by factors outside of their control. I’d like to talk about those factors in next week’s article, but firstly, let’s explore the positives.

 

For most Australian students, taking a part time job is an essential part of the university experience. Whether it is cleaning dishes at your local pub or delivering pizzas, poorly paying part time jobs are something that unites most students during their undergraduate years. This very feeling of unity is something that most international students feel excluded from. By this I mean that international students often feel a lack of common ground with their local counterparts. By sharing in the experience of part time work, they are able to establish a point of similarity with their classmates. This shared burden, often the beginning of all manner of relationships amongst local students, could be used to stimulate conversation and even friendship between the local and international student populations. For example, what better way to start up a conversation with your average Aussie iconoclast than: “Work sucks!”

In addition to sharing in a common experience, part time work allows students to gain cultural knowledge. For example, my former student Phil asked me today why Australians always answered the question “How are you going?” with the response “Fine” or “Pretty good”. He wondered how the entire population of Australia could always be ‘Fine’. Where these people never sick, did they never share their troubles? Whilst these questions may seem strange from a local perspective, for students unfamiliar with Australian culture, even simple interactions such as greetings may be difficult to comprehend. However, through Phil’s work experience he was able to observe an element of authentic Australian culture in action, and develop questions about its constituent elements. These questions allowed him to come to a deeper understanding of Australians and how they relate with each other, and we all know, with understanding comes the ability to adapt. I reminded him that I felt a similar confusion when I lived in Southern China where a standard greeting can be translated as “Have you eaten today?” This statement caused me all manner of confusion. Until I realized that it was just a standard greeting I was starting to think that either everyone I met was obsessed with my diet or that I was being constantly asked out for lunch dates by everyone from my boss to the lady who collected my rubbish!   

 

Of course, there are other more obvious benefits to having a part time job whilst studying abroad. Money is of course a great motivator in searching for a part-time job. Also, the chance to practice English in an authentic situation is also a valuable experience for most international students. However, both of these advantages are diminished by several factors including the stipulations of the Student Visa in Australia and the subsequent exploitation that these stipulations inadvertently create, along with employer discrimination against hiring international students. It is these aspects that I would like to explore in more detail in next weeks blog along with some potential solutions.