Students find money-making opportunities Uptown

Hannah Renton

Mass Communications senior, Lili Mae Kinney, sets outside table for guests at Uptown restaurant Tito’s Ceviche & Pisco. on Sept. 11, 2019. She has been working there since the summer of the same year.

Khushi Wahi

For students looking for an extra buck, the Uptown bubble proves to be a profitable neighborhood for foodies.

Lili Mae Kinney, mass communication senior, has been working at Tito’s Ceviche & Pisco since the summer before her senior year.

“It can get pretty crazy sometimes,” said Kinney.

Besides an already hectic college life, working to try and earn a little extra when possible is what many students do. Whether it be working for extra money, or just to try and spread out and get involved in the community, being a student worker Kinney said it prepared her for life beyond college.

Albeit her reason being that she isn’t working to pay for school, she describes student worker life as “A nice break from campus life.”

“You just meet so many different people in the community,” Kinney said.

She takes on the challenge of working part time so that her parents don’t give her spending money, in addition to the fact that “A girl’s gotta eat!”

Coupled with being more involved in a community outside of university, working part-time allows students to make friends outside of class.

“I’ve met friends that I wouldn’t have met at all that are older, they’re living their life, and are just not in college, so I just enjoy that.,” Kinney said.

Mass communication junior Bernadette Locke has worked many jobs. During the summer, she worked at a SnoBall Stand and is now working at French Truck Coffee.

She isn’t working to pay for school, however, she works part time in order to pay for her rent, utilities, groceries and organization bills.

She describes working whilst in college as “difficult.”

“Being surrounded by people who don’t have to worry about paying for all of these things is a challenge that I have to get over and I have to understand that, this is my situation, and I can’t wallow in it,” Kinney said. “It doesn’t make me a better person, it doesn’t make them bad people. It’s just a balance and it’s getting used to what my life will be like after college. You know, working and paying for bills and stuff.”

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Mass Communications junior Bernadette Locke makes a latte at an Uptown coffee shop, French Truck Coffee on Sept. 10, 2019. Photo credit: Hannah Renton