FYE First Year Navigator (Fall 2026)

Pay Rate: $13.73 per hour

About the role

First Year Navigators serve as vital ambassadors and peer leaders, supporting new students through their transition to college life. Functioning as an extension of our campus Leadership SMC Program, First Year Navigators blend administrative office support with active peer engagement, event execution, and workshop facilitation. This role is ideal for students looking to sharpen their leadership, public speaking, and project management skills while making a direct impact on the first-year student experience.

Responsibilities

• Partner with staff to co-lead workshops and events for first-year students. Share personal, authentic insights on key transition topics such as time management, getting involved in campus clubs, utilizing campus resources, and effectively communicating with professors.
• Assist the FYE Manager in planning and executing one student-led event in FYE each Fall and Spring semester to engage new students.
• Serve as an approachable, knowledgeable point of contact for first-year students seeking advice, campus directions, or resource referrals.
• Draft monthly student-focused features, advice columns, and resource highlights for the department’s monthly newsletter.
• Assist in the design and distribute creative promotion for FYE initiatives, ensuring messaging resonates with first-year students.
• Oversee the front desk atmosphere, ensuring all visiting students, families, and staff receive a warm, professional, and helpful greeting.
• Assist with office operations, including answering phone and email inquiries, directing walk-in traffic, maintaining lobby materials, and helping students navigate campus portals (i.e., registration systems, advising scheduling tools, tutoring scheduling, etc.).
• Active enrollment and participation in Leadership SMC as a core component of professional development. Navigators apply program curriculum directly to the front lines of the department, serving as primary support for our operational needs, event logistics, and peer-facilitation efforts.

The duties listed are not all-inclusive; additional duties may be assigned by a supervisor.

Requirements

• Current SMC student in good academic and conduct standing.
• Strong, comprehensive knowledge of SMC, campus, and available resources.
• Strong interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills.
• Demonstrated reliability, punctuality, and a customer-service-oriented mindset.
• Comfortable speaking in front of small-to-medium groups of peers.
• Must be enrolled at the College on a full-time or part-time basis (minimum of 6 credit hours during fall and spring semesters and 3 credit hours during the summer semester). High-school students who are dual enrolled are eligible if they meet the credit hour requirement. Alternatively, must be enrolled or continuing education with a four-year College partner on the SMC campus, with at least 1 SMC credit hour during the relevant semesters.
• Must maintain a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.0 to be eligible for student employment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Active involvement in or completion of campus leadership training/programming (or a strong desire to develop leadership skills).
• Experience with Google Suite and Canva.

Physical Requirements

• Climbing: Ascending or descending ladders, stairs, scaffolding, ramps, poles, and the like.
• Balancing: Maintaining body equilibrium on narrow, slippery, or erratically moving surfaces.
• Stooping: Bending body downward and forward by bending spine at the waist.
• Kneeling: Bending legs at knee to rest on knee or knees.
• Crouching: Bending the body downward and forward by bending leg and spine.
• Reaching: Extending hand(s) and arm(s) in any direction.
• Standing: Particularly for sustained periods of time.
• Walking: Moving about on foot to accomplish tasks, including moving between work sites.
• Fingering: Picking, pinching, typing, or otherwise working primarily with fingers.
• Grasping: Applying pressure to an object with the fingers and palm.
• Feeling: Perceiving attributes of objects such as size, shape, temperature, or texture by touch.
• Talking: Expressing or exchanging ideas by means of the spoken word.
• Hearing: Perceiving sounds at normal speaking levels with or without correction.
• Light work: Exerting up to 20 pounds of force occasionally, and/or up to 10 pounds frequently.
• Close visual acuity: Preparing and analyzing data, transcribing, viewing a computer terminal, and extensive reading.