Jobs Jobs Jobs

The President and the presidential candidates are all talking about jobs. I'm ready to share part one of my personal labor history.   Surprisingly, physics seems to be a continual theme -- how'd that happen?

Physics, Swimming Pools, Manholes, Contracts, Cats and Pink Cupcakes

My Personal Labor Journal   © 2011 Julie Shubin

I remember sitting in that hot (non-air-conditioned) classroom in the School of Industrial Labor Relations at Cornell, listening intently to Professor Gerd Korman lecturing about American labor history.  At that time, it did not occur to me that I had started my own personal labor history. 

From as early as kindergarten, when asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” my answer came easily.  With certainty and without hesitation, I answered, “I want to be a lawyer.”  How could a five year old be so certain?  I watched my lawyer dad go off to work every day, with a smile on his face.  He loved his job.  So naturally, I wanted to follow in his footsteps. 

During my first full-time high school summer job at the Nassau County Department of Tax Assessment, in Mineola, NY, I discovered that a great majority of people do not like their jobs. 

I’ve always worked and I have been fortunate to find work that I like.

Student work:  I can tutor physics!

During junior high and high school, I earned money by babysitting and tutoring, which are not unusual jobs for a motivated student.  However, during those early jobs, I took on challenges – for example, tutoring Hebrew for a boy who had dyslexia, and as a senior in high school, tutoring a junior in physics. 

I took a physics course during my junior year.  It was an individually paced class that was offered to high performing students (similar to today’s honors classes).  Unfortunately, it was taught by a low performing teacher.  With my friends in that class, and particularly with the help of one friend, who is now a tenured astrophysics professor at Harvard, we learned physics on our own. 

I had been tutoring a girl in French who also needed help in physics.  I suggested that she ask my friend – the astrophysics professor, but she said no.  She wanted me to teach her because she thought that I was so good at explaining things.  I tutored her in physics, and she did well. 

I know that I can’t teach physics at the college level, but it made me smile when I received this comment on my Spring 2011 course evaluations for Bule 402 Commercial Law -- “I would take her courses again in a heartbeat. It doesn't even have to be anything to do with Law. If she taught Physics I would still take her.”

Tomorrow's post -- did you know that I worked at a psychiatric hospital?