Work from home: Not just for professionals anymore

Ibrahim Jobe

By IBRAHIM JOBE

Working as a student assistant in the age of COVID has it benefits.

When I first applied to be a social media student assistant at the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center, I was unaware that it would take me six months to meet any of my coworkers in person – but such is reality in the post-Covid era.

Although this may sound daunting, when I eventually got to meet them face-to-face at a diversity awards event, it felt as if I had already known them for years. The constant Zoom meetings, emailing back-and-forth and coordination of social media campaigns had cemented familiarity with my higher-ups.

We were not just strangers behind a screen, because so much of ourselves was being expressed via writing, video, tone, work ethic and content. This is not to say working from home is superior to working in person, but it is a powerful tool to be utilized in the post-COVID era.

Time matters, and working from home (WFH) saves time. Stony Brook University is a massive campus, made evident by its extensive transportation network. As a student living in a part of the campus that required two buses to get the AERTC, I found not having to commute to work tremendously helped with work-life balance (though my tendency to sometimes procrastinate didn’t help).

Eliminating the round-trip commute – from waiting in the numerous bus stops to the rides themselves – probably saved me an hour every workday. This timesaving does not even include having to prepare for work (that is, making sure I was presentable). Once you got to work, there was the whole time it takes to settle down before being productive.

There is a constant struggle as a college student to balance work and life, making sure you're getting work done and also engaging in social activities – WFH ensures both. There were so many times where I was not worried about my appearance for my weekly meetings with my program manager, as we’d both have our cameras turned off and could simply focus on the content at hand.

There were times where I would schedule release of content days ahead and focus on schoolwork or upcoming social activities. At other times, such as during upcoming holidays, I would do my social media marketing work (mostly browsing and searching for content relating to renewables) on the train ride home to New York City.

Working from home is flexible, which is what college students really desire as they juggle schoolwork, job and social activities. And what better way to offset our carbon footprint than by cutting our commute time to work? That’s a huge focus for urban planners – my intended career.