GET TO KNOW MORE ABOUT AN RC STAFF ACTIVITIES: AN INTERVIEW WITH AMANDA AISYAH PUTRI

(PADANG) Khaidir Anwar’s Resource Center (RC) is a square room located on the second floor of Faculty of Humanities Andalas University. It is a place that frequently visited by English Department students, especially those who come from English Department. Visitors are required to take off their footwears before entering the room and only allowed to come inside by being barefoot. A wide blue carpet spreads across the room, which have shelves that contain lots of books collection. The other side of the room provides some computers, free to be used by the visitors. Some short, wide tables stood firmly in the middle of the room, leaving some spaces for the visitors to sit or lay down on the floor. There are also some sets of gameboard and games cards, in case the visitors want to play games. If it gets too hot inside, RC has two units of the Air Conditioner (AC) to cooling it down. RC typically open from Monday to Friday from 08.00 AM to 16.00 PM. 

This fun, cozy, and comfortable environment might not be possible without the contribution of the Head of Resource Center himself, Mr. Gindho Rizano, M.Hum, as well as the members of RC staffs. The staffs consist of students of English Department Andalas University. The RC staffs are responsible for keeping the room clean, arranged the books and thesises on the shelves, taking care of computers, and other things related to the role of librarians. If someone want to join as an RC staff, he or she must be a member of RC itself, and only those who had joined English Student On Camp (ESOC) are allowed to be an RC member. 

In order to know more about what does it mean to be an RC staff, we had arranged an interview with one of the RC staff members, Amanda Aisyah Putri. It is worth to note that RC is an English-only environment. However, we decided to conduct the interview in Bahasa for the sake of efficiencies. This interview was done on October 23rd, 2018. The first half of the interview was hosted by Tuti Handayani and the second half of interview was hosted by Mutia, The interview video can be watched below.

https://youtu.be/1NSfwg8PlA8

As shown the video, Amanda said that  her duties as an RC staff member resemble those of an office worker, including guarding the room. One of her duties is to keep a book flow, in which the staffs must keep a track of people who are borrowing and returning the books. An RC staff is responsible for the book collection that RC has. Amanda also mentioned how being an RC member has been helping her to improve her English. It may due to the fact that RC is an English-only environment. In fact, saying a word in a language other than English will cost a person IDR 1000. 

When asked about things that a student needs to prepare in order to be an RC staff members, Amanda said, “The first one is courage. The second one is willpower. If we have committed ourselves to have a good English skills and want to improve our English as good as possible, then we have a good chance to be accepted as an RC staff. We also become useful for other people.”

Amanda admitted that after becoming an RC staff, her English skills slowly increased since she has to communicate in English on a regular basis. Regarding the schedule, Amanda thinks that being an RC staff is not really hard for her as a student because the schedule is more flexible. Each staff has their own shift that could be arranged at their own will. 

At the end, we learned from Amanda that the recruitment for RC staff member usually open every semester. The open recruitement would be held typically on the beginning of the semester. Hopefully, on the next semester, RC will also welcome new members, since the freshmen of the year 2018 may have joined ESOC by then. 

Reporter: Mutia, Tuti Handayani