A Student Assistant is a position for a student enrolled at university and entails assisting faculty members, basically in everything they do not want to do themselves. This includes a wide variety of tasks, from handling administrative tasks related to the academic matters of students to proofreading academic papers, sourcing references, or doing research for lecture preparation.
There are part-time student assistant positions available on most college campuses. Most of the job is done either at campus offices, responding to student inquiries, handling admission forms, or maintaining student files or at the library doing the legwork for academic research, collecting and organizing data.
However, you need to have great interpersonal skills as well because student assistants contribute to organizing community life on the campus, helping students not only with administrative problems but occasionally providing counseling for personal matters, too.
Student Assistant Overview
Student Assistant Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a student assistant. For example, did you know that they make an average of $11.77 an hour? That's $24,473 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 4% and produce 55,400 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Student Assistant Do
There are certain skills that many student assistants have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed patience, communication skills and emotional skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a student assistant, we found that a lot of resumes listed 9.3% of student assistants included customer service, while 8.7% of resumes included communication, and 5.6% of resumes included front office. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the student assistant job title. But what industry to start with? Most student assistants actually find jobs in the education and hospitality industries.
How To Become a Student Assistant
If you're interested in becoming a student assistant, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 70.1% of student assistants have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 10.1% of student assistants have master's degrees. Even though most student assistants have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a student assistant. When we researched the most common majors for a student assistant, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on student assistant resumes include associate degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a student assistant. In fact, many student assistant jobs require experience in a role such as internship. Meanwhile, many student assistants also have previous career experience in roles such as sales associate or cashier.
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Student Assistant Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a student assistant can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as office assistant, progress to a title such as executive assistant and then eventually end up with the title operations manager.
What is the right job for my career path?
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Average Salary for a Student Assistant
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
The Texas A&M University System Student Hourly Assistant | Compliance | Athletics Student Hourly Assistant | Compliance | Athletics | The Texas A&M University System The Texas A&M University System | 01/29/2021 01/29/2021 | $31,30501/29/2021 $31,305 |
St. Louis Community College Student Services Assistant I/Biotechnology Student Workplace Learning 5 Student Services Assistant I/Biotechnology Student Workplace Learning 5 | St. Louis Community College St. Louis Community College | 01/27/2021 01/27/2021 | $24,60601/27/2021 $24,606 |
Alpine Union School District Student Supervisor/Shadow Hills Elementary School-Repost Student Supervisor/Shadow Hills Elementary School-Repost | Alpine Union School District Alpine Union School District | 01/27/2021 01/27/2021 | $27,13101/27/2021 $27,131 |
Los Rios Community College District Student Personnel Assistant-Student Services (Temporary) (Five Positions) Student Personnel Assistant-Student Services (Temporary) (Five Positions) | Los Rios Community College District Los Rios Community College District | 01/26/2021 01/26/2021 | $35,68801/26/2021 $35,688 |
University of Florida Student Assistant Student Assistant | University of Florida University of Florida | 01/26/2021 01/26/2021 | $18,78301/26/2021 $18,783 |
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Student Assistant Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Student Assistant. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Student Assistant Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Student Assistant resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Colleges for Student Assistants
1. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
2. SUNY at Binghamton
Vestal, NY • Public
3. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
4. SUNY Stony Brook
Stony Brook, NY • Public
5. New York University
New York, NY • Private
6. Duke University
Durham, NC • Private
7. Howard University
Washington, DC • Private
8. SUNY at Albany
Albany, NY • Public
9. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
10. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, MI • Public
Top Skills For a Student Assistant
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 9.3% of student assistants listed customer service on their resume, but soft skills such as patience and communication skills are important as well.
- Customer Service, 9.3%
- Communication, 8.7%
- Front Office, 5.6%
- Administrative Assistance, 5.3%
- Financial Aid, 4.6%
- Other Skills, 66.5% See All Student Assistant Skills
Best States For a Student Assistant
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a student assistant. The best states for people in this position are Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Connecticut. Student assistants make the most in Maine with an average salary of $42,098. Whereas in Massachusetts and Vermont, they would average $39,051 and $37,577, respectively. While student assistants would only make an average of $36,479 in Connecticut, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Vermont
$37,577
Avg. Salary
2. Connecticut
$36,479
Avg. Salary
3. New Hampshire
$33,607
Avg. Salary
How Do Student Assistant Rate Their Jobs?
Top Student Assistant Employers
We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ student assistants and discovered their number of student assistant opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that California State University was the best, especially with an average salary of $19,994. Texas Tech University follows up with an average salary of $20,269, and then comes Georgia State University with an average of $20,228. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as a student assistant. The employers include Lang College, Guilford College, and University of San Francisco