There’s been a lot of buzz on campus surrounding the newly enforced rule of no homework and studying while on the job. While this has been a long-standing rule within the university, it not been explicitly enforced until now.
Since the enforcement of the rule, NSU students have been very opinionated. Many agree with enforcing the long-standing rule, while others feel that the rule shouldn’t have been made in the first place. While both sides are valid, the rule itself is very vague and may need to be tweaked if it is to be enforced.
The rule itself is found under the student responsibilities section in the student employment handbook. It states, “Students who accept a student employee position accept the responsibility of maintaining professional standards, and agree to… not study or do homework assignments during working hours.”
Some NSU employed students argue that they got certain on-campus jobs because of the incentive to do homework and/or study after required job work was finished. If they can no longer do their homework at their jobs, then what is stopping them from getting a job off-campus where they can make more money while adhering to the no-homework rule? Additionally, every job is different and the rule doesn’t consider jobs on campus where the students have no set task to do at their job. Some jobs require students to sit behind a desk for hours on end with a lot of downtime between assigned tasks. What are students supposed to do instead?
On the other hand, there are student employees patting the university on the back for enforcing the rule. These student employees feel that if they can’t do homework at their job due to their workplace’s fast-paced environment, then neither should other students. Some believe the school is doing the students an injustice if they allow student employees to do homework at the desk, because students should be taught early on not to do personal tasks while at work. Others felt that homework was a hindrance to their employee’s performance and was preventing the employees from doing their jobs. While some may argue that this isn’t true, multiple people have witnessed student employees doing their homework when they should have been doing their jobs.
While both sides of the argument have valid points, the rule doesn’t clearly state what students should do now during downtime, since homework is ruled out.
Some students were taking advantage of the leniency of their employers and doing homework when they shouldn’t, but there are jobs on campus where doing homework just isn’t feasible. It is also true that in the real world we often cannot do our personal tasks at work.
However, this rule fails to take into account the different types of jobs on campus, specifically those with a lot of downtime. If the rule is to be enforced, then it needs to be fair and encompass all the different jobs on campus, which the current rule does not.
