Higher Education’s Version of Fast-Food Work

When I was 16, I landed my first paying job, at a Jack in the Box restaurant. I changed the grease in the fryers, flipped burgers, mopped bathrooms, and scrubbed the concrete slab outside the drive-thru window. It was a perfect job for a teenager: It taught me what hard work really was and it taught me to swallow my pride (necessary when you are covered in french-fry grease and the cheerleading squad happens to come to the counter).

I suppose that higher education’s version of fast-food work is teaching freshman composition, working in grants administration, or maybe in the entry-level roles in enrollment services. Each of these kinds of experiences is hard work but produces lessons that can last for an entire career.

What other jobs in higher education might qualify as character-building experiences?