April 15, 2013
April Wefler
[email protected]
Nicolas Hostetter, a native of Alamosa, Colo., was originally a business major who thought he wanted to do something in marketing. He attended UCCS because it was three hours north of where he grew up.
“Where I grew up was extremely small, and at the time, I thought this was like an epically large city,” he said. He started freshman year as the advertising coordinator for the Office of Student Affairs.
“I kinda started working here for a totally different reason and kinda ended up in this position, and that’s what I want to do now,” Hostetter said.
Now studying public administration, he works as the graduate assistant for OSA – and has been named Student Employee of the Year.
“I was extremely shocked, but I’m excited. It’s been a fun year. It’s been an interesting year,” he commented.
Supervisors nominated student employees for the award, and the Student Employment Advisory Committee made the selection.
Hostetter was recognized during an April 8 kick-off event for Student Employment Week and will be recognized again at the Campus Awards Ceremony on May 1.
After the OSA assistant director quit last fall, Hostetter took on the assistant director duties until the new assistant director, Steven Cucchiara, started in November. Hostetter said the job was stressful, but he learned a lot.
“That’s kind of been the reason that I’ve chosen that I wanna stay in student affairs and student life. It was just a huge learning curve,” he said.
“Previous to that, I was just an undergrad, so I started early and jumped right into having to learn to be a graduate assistant,” he added.
As part of his job, Hostetter oversees all of the graduate coordinators and ensures that event planning is going well. Additionally, he does a lot of paperwork – paying vendors, scheduling and behind-the-scenes jobs.
Hostetter is most looking forward to the event Play Fair, happening next fall.
“This year, I noticed a lot of students in the first week coming to all of our events, but they didn’t really have friends. Play Fair is designed to be one massive team builder so you get to know people,” he said.
“Hopefully when they come to events, they’ll have those friends and connections and be able to walk up to people and feel like part of a group.”
Along with being a graduate assistant for OSA, Hostetter is also a graduate student in Student Affairs in Higher Education, his goal to have a job in some aspect of Student Life and Leadership.
“My dream job would be to be some sort of director in student life or something in student affairs,” he said. “[UCCS] would be ideal, but not likely.”
He said that he doesn’t have a specific place that he wants to work, but knows he wants to remain in Colorado. “My family’s here. If they were somewhere else, I’d totally go there, but they’re here, so I want to be here.”
Hostetter said that his favorite part of the job is working with students. “I interact with them daily; all day, every day. Pretty much everything we do is student-driven, and it’s a lot of fun putting events and programs on that students want and then watching them enjoy it.”
He added, “I think they’re at this point where you can have a big impact on them and it’s a lot of fun, watching them grow through all of this and you get the chance to really help them succeed in what they’re doing.”