While many college students spend their late nights dancing the night away at clubs and ordering drinks, Ken Roark, business administration junior from New Orleans, has spent most of his nights as a college student on the other side of the bar.Roark, bartender at Norm’s Daiquiri and Grill, has worked at such establishments since he started college, first working the door at The Library, then becoming a bar-back at Last Call before being hired as a full-time bartender at Norm’s.

“You get to meet a lot of interesting people, and the money is great,” Roark says. “There’s no other job really like it where you don’t have to work a lot and also make a lot of money.”

A typical workweek for Roark, also a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, includes four days of working from 5 p.m. until closing time, which is usually around 1:30 a.m. Roark says working late is the only downside to being a bartender while in college.

“I get home late and just want to wind down,” he says. “When I come home I’m so tired, I just want to go to bed.”

Roark says time management is key to balancing a job such as bartending with academics.

“I concentrate on school a lot,” Roark says. “I want to do my schoolwork, and that’s what it comes down to. You learn to get stuff done when you can. You can’t play around.”

“Money is a big issue for most people,” he says. “I don’t have to worry about that. It’s a relief knowing that I will have the money to pay the bills and afford other things.”

Even though most bars in downtown Thibodaux are not open every day, Roark says a bartender can make just as much money working a few days in those establishments as one can working in a bar that’s open every day. He says it doesn’t bother him to be working while others are having fun, unless he sees his friends there.

“As long as I’m here in college, I’d much rather bartend than work anywhere else,” Roark says.

He says there are a lot of interesting things that happen behind the scenes in bars that many are not aware of. Once at The Library, Roark says he tried to break up a fight only to have one man involved in the fight attack him. When police arrived, Roark was still holding the man down, and police thought Roark was in the fight. Roark said the man went after him again, and police had to use a Taser gun to stun the attacker.

In his spare time, Roark enjoys going to the movies, spending time with his girlfriend and having as much fun as he can out of work.