Many students look at their work study jobs as just that – jobs. For Arts & Sciences senior Joy Chaput, however, her work study job is much more.

The Office of Financial Aid and Student Employment recently named Chaput the student employee of the year. She was chosen from a list of 30 nominees, all of whom were full-time undergraduate students employed for at least the past six months.

As a freshman, Chaput was assigned to work in the Career Center, a placement she credits with much of her current success.

“I really like the kind of work we do here,” Chaput said. “We’re not just answering the phones and making appointments. We get to see what the employer side of things is. It’s just a really great environment. It’s what I attribute my success to because I had access to the career counselors whenever I needed them.”

For the full-time faculty in the Career Center, working with Chaput has been a rewarding experience as well.

“When I very first started seeing joy, she was a little bit quiet, a little less confident in herself,” said Lisa Dunn, the career and academic advisor who is also Chaput’s academic advisor. “As she grew not only in her work but in her studies, I saw her get more and more confident. She kind of took on a quiet leadership role around here. She began to believe in herself more, and that’s kind of fun to watch.”

She said a large part of being named the student employee of the year is a testament to the way she lives her life.

“One of the reasons I really try to work my hardest here at the Career Center and in school is that my little brothers are growing up in the same situation I had, but it’s a little rougher,” Chaput said. “I’m just really trying to set the best example that I can for them so they have motivation to keep living and to work toward something and just so they know they can do it. They’re coming from the same background as I [did], and I’ll always try and help them.”

As well as being a work study student, Chaput also worked for the Career Center during the summer of 2008 when the office was moving from Brandeis to the Harper Center. Last year, she worked as the public relations intern, and this year she is the PMED Seminar Program intern.

Chaput said her work in the Career Center has allowed her to become a sort of mentor to younger students thinking about going to medical school, and she tries to “strip away those fears of getting into med school.”

Chaput is going to medical school next year, although she has not decided where.

Both Chaput and Dunn said the relationship between Chaput and the Career Center is more than one between employee and employer – it is a family relationship.

“I really consider this my home at Creighton,” Chaput said. “These people here are part of my Creighton family. I spend a lot of time here.”

In the Career Center’s letter nominating Chaput for student employee of the year, Cheri Jackson, the Career Center information specialist, summed up what Chaput has meant to the center over the past four years:

“I have already gone into full panic mode,” Jackson wrote. “Joy’s experience and expertise will be sorely missed. It will be hard to get the work done without her.”