Student Employment

Application Period Now Closed

Thanks very much for your interest in applying to work as a Peer Writing Consultant with the UMB Writing Center. Our 2024-5 application period is closed. Please check this space in spring 2025 for information about joining the 2025-6 team, and reach out to us with any questions at writing@umaryland.edu

Why Work with the Writing Center?

a consultant smiling at a student and pointing at their paper

  • Do you enjoy working one-on-one with people to help them realize their goals?
  • Are you looking for a campus job that will augment your social justice coursework? 
  • Want to collaborate with UMB writers on their academic work and advocate with them for more just and equitable writing practices at UMB and beyond?

At the Writing Center, we know that nobody ever writes up a “perfect” draft. Writing is always social, negotiated, and contextual — a process that fundamentally resists standardization and attitudes about language “correctness.” We’re serious about challenging assumptions — whether they arise in ourselves, our clients, or their audiences — because we know that standardizing language ideologies cause real harm, particularly to writers of color. Educating ourselves and the institutions where we work is central to our mission. 

To put it simply, we’re an educational service, not an editorial service. We focus on working with writers in close collaboration through discussion about rhetorical and linguistic choices, thinking through concerns emerging from audience expectations, and developing strategies together for responding to and/or pushing back against those expectations.

If you enjoy writing and tutoring, but you’re concerned that you don’t have a “high enough level” of English to be a great consultant, or if you’re worried that you don’t remember enough of the rules of English grammar to be successful in this role — we want you to apply! The most important quality we look for in new consultants is curiosity. If you can make a year-long commitment to learning and sharing about what language is, how language ideologies shape our lives, and how we might work together as a community at UMB and beyond to expand the boundaries of academic language and writing–then we hope you will join our consultant team in 2024-5.