If you ask someone what the important aspects of a department are, he or she usually answers that the professors and the students are. This is only 80% correct, because the other 20% of a department is the assistant. Every department has its assistant and when the assistant is absent, several administrative inconveniences occur. However, students are barely aware of what they do. Besides this, they often misunderstand the role of the assistant. Thus, the Pharos will provide information about the department assistant by interviewing some of them.

Interview

Please introduce yourself.

Jeon

 Hello. I am Jeon Hui-geol and I was an assistant in the Department of English Language and Literature from 2016 to 2018. It’s a pleasure to meet you.

Lim

 I’m Lim Gwang-ho and I worked as an experiment assistant of Electronic Physics Department for 2 years from February 2016 until 2018.

What’s the reason that you chose to be an assistant?

Jeon

 Right after I graduate from university, I went to the Graduate School of Education

here, and thanks to the recommendation of a professor, I became an assistant in the

department I graduated from. Since I had to study, there were not many other options for me. This job was a golden opportunity to make money for my tuition and living expenses.

Lim

 At first, someone who was a senior student and an assistant suggested that I work as an assistant as graduation was approaching. I decided to work as an assistant after giving it a lot of thought because I had not chosen a career path and getting a job was very difficult. Also, the main reason for the decision was that I thought I could study and do a lot of physics experiments.

Please tell us the core work of an assistant.

Jeon

 The work of an assistant is basically administrative work for the department. First, we have to take care of undergraduate administration tasks such as enrollment, scholarships, leaving and returning to school, graduation, and others; every part of a student’s academic life is a part of the assistant’s job. An assistant also coordinates the opinions of professors and faculty, writes official documents, and receives papers. Second, assistants receive students’ comlaints. I accept complaints that can happen during the school period and try to solve them. Third, assistants provide help to professors. An assistant actually assists professors to help them provide the best lectures to students.

Lim

There are two kinds of assistants, official assistants and experiment assistants in the natural science engineering office. Experiment assistants help with experiment classes, but official assistants do work related to practical tasks for students. They also manage the laboratory and experiment equipment, and do safety checks.

What kinds of difficulties do assistants have?

Jeon

A university consists of three interest groups which are the students, the professors and the faculties. Assisting all of them are the assistants. Hopefully, the opinions of every interest group is considered when making decisions, but that is practically impossible. Thus, an assistant has to be a link among the three groups in order to achieve the best result under any given circumstance. At certain time all parties insist that only their opinion is valid, and those are the most difficult moments. This happens mostly during the course application period.

Lim

In 2017, a requirement for applying assistants was changed so that only graduates or prospective graduates in the year of application at Kyonggi University, could apply, so the number of applicants decreased. Therefore, we couldn’t fill the fixed number of position for assistants. I want the requirements to be more flexible.

Do you think that the experience of being an assistant will be helpful in a person’s future life?

Jeon

 Working as an assistant, I learned the basic procedures of administration as beginner in society. I learned how to find the connections among different interest groups and to communicate with them. For me, it seems like this helped me develop a fundamental competency as a member of society.

Lim

 Yes, I think so because I could develop my skills for getting a job and my future, and I could do many experiments related to my major. When I was preparing for my first class as an assistant, I thought, “How can I conduct to experiments more safe?” and “How can I best guide experiment participation?” At first, I made the teaching material myself because I was so nervous. However, many students did experiments safely in my class, so I was interested and gained confidence. I think this experiment experience will be a big help in my future.

Do you have anything to ask of students and professors as an assistant?

Jeon

 This job sometimes pushed me to choose one side and that could be the student or the professor depending on the situation. This was why I was burdened, and I can easily imagine that the current assistants have this problem now too. This is a chronic issue, so I ask you to understand the challenges that assistants face on a daily basis.

Lim

 A laboratory can be a dangerous place if even a small mistake is made, so everyone,

especially freshmen, follow the assistant’s or professor’s guidance and remain calm. One more thing, professors and assistants work hard as members of the faculty, and they are concerned about students’ welfare, so please notice this and respect all your assistants and professors.

 Just as students have their difficulties, so do assistants. Students often need the help of an assistant, but an assistant has to deal with many students’ tasks, so one’s request may not be granted immediately Especially, remember that for important things to individuals like applying for classes, assistants have a great deal of work to do. Why don’t you try to be someone who considers the challenges that others have to contend with at Kyonggi University?

Planning Editor•LEE GAEUN•antonia0504@naver.com

71st Reporter•PARK SINUI•dean0305@naver.com