Learning from First Year Students: A Collaboration Between the Library and the Office of Student Employment

The Education and Development Grant for Employability (EDGE) Program administered by the Office of Student Employment in the DePaul University Career Center is designed to help first year students acquire skills and experience that will help them find jobs on campus in their second year. EDGE students spend five to ten hours each week in a university office where they gain relevant job skills while contributing to authentic and valuable work of those offices. A requirement of the program is that these student teams be used for initiatives that could not be completed without extra resources and that regular student employees were not being paid to do. Each EDGE team is given meaningful projects and/or activities that include learning outcomes for the students. The Library EDGE team was comprised of eight students from a variety of disciplines including game design, history, pre-med, psychology, business management, public policy, and digital cinema. This broad spectrum of interests provided diverse perspectives and talents to a range of assigned projects. EDGE projects involved most of the functional areas of the Library and provided useful data for assessing use of library space, interactions at service desks, clarity and effectiveness of University Archives’ procedures, and impact of outreach and promotion activities geared toward new and prospective students. In preparation for each project, students received orientations to each department at which they learned about operations, resources, and services