Our son lived at home the first two summers after living in the dorm, young so age issues with some jobs and by the time he thought about it too late as summer jobs taken. Third summer REU far away. Then he was paying rent and thank goodness was not home. Bear of a house “guest”- closed door…
We were in son’s hometown for careers but not a place we wanted to stay. Happy that son is independent. We will see in another 20 years when we are elderly- if there are grandchildren. Then we may want to be within 50 or a 100 miles of him (or in that nursing home he can visit once in a while). The PNW is far too gloomy- we considered it but need more sunshine.
I grew up making numerous trips to parents’ hometown. But- so glad they had left that city. Likewise happy we all left where son was raised (you live where the job is). One nice thing about relatives on both sides living in various locations is that it is an excuse to go places. No one on east coast, however. We have the west coast and Midwest covered. Distances are so vast in this country.
Summers during college are vastly different than post graduation. Go where you want and can find the job you want. Eventually you may want to be closer to home. btw- NC to NJ is close by in my book- all on the east coast, driving distances.
1° Take it a step at a time. WHY in the world are you even discussing where you’ll be living after you graduate? Don’t engage. Say you’ll look for jobs everywhere and go where you get a well-paid job.
2° Most parents want their kids to have a job after college. Most often, that means their kid goes where the job is. Geographically lmiting their ability to find a job is one big reason some graduates don’t find a job. In short: go where the job is. If in NJ, great for them. If elsewhere… go where the job is.
3° Right now, you shouldn’t be fighting with your parents about what may or may not happen two years from now. You must look for a job and apply everywhere within driving distance (or within public-transportation distance). In my opinion, if you didn’t secure a job in Wilmington already, it’s too late. If you’re still there, give yourself 2-3 days to look for one. If you’ve left for NJ, the issue I see is that if you couldn’t find a job there while you lived there, how would you find a job while in NJ? At this point, most jobs have been snapped up (I’ve known college students who looked in October and most if not all have something by now).
@MYOS1634 I’ve actually been back home since Tuesday, and I already want to go back to Wilmington. I don’t do anything up here at all, I’m just lazy at home.
Don’t some places do Skype interviews? I would interview with them via video chat and would go back if I get the job. There are still positions available looking on Indeed and other sites.
^you can try, but many will just interview people there for the few missing positions. Don’t go there unless you have a job offer. (Does UNC W have summer jobs?) What about resort-related jobs?
You can take a break at home, but unless you have a job at Wilmington within 2-3 days, start looking in NJ.
@MYOS1634 I was actually thinking of applying to jobs in both places anyways. But I was also worried that what I brought up to my dad earlier today (see upthread) virtually restricted me to an NJ job search anyways. Which I don’t want, because I just can’t get comfortable up here because of my history/memories that I hate. Life in Wilmington functions a lot better and is a lot smoother.
There’s no such thing as a 'NJ-only job search ’ for a college graduate. Those with such restrictions end up being unemployed. You look for a job and you go where the job is, which may be Georgia, Minnesota, Maine, Utah, Montana or Delaware. It may be in North Carolina but it may not.
For a part time job it makes sense to take a job where you have a place to live and where you can easily get to the job.
I can understand why you’d rather stay in Wilmington for the summer, but if you haven’t secured a job there yet and don’t do so within a couple days, you will have to work from your home in New Jersey.
@MYOS1634 the “NJ-only” part was referring to the part-time summer 2017 job search, yes. I will not engage with my parents about where I may or may not live in two years. I wholly prefer staying in North Carolina to moving anywhere else, but we will see. As you have said, it’s all about where the job is. It just bothers me that my dad now apparently regrets sending me to the school I love in the first place, and the regret actually has nothing to do with grades or anything of the sort.
I like the idea of a resort, it’s not a bad idea at all. There are spots available. But before I take any jobs in Wilmington, I definitely have to run it by my parents first. I just hope they don’t get upset like they did before. Especially because the assumption now is that I’d help my dad out with the business at some point this summer (I asked him about it because of @oldfort’s suggestion).
It’s one thing to say you “can’t” go to school in NJ because people you know may go to those schools and you have bad memories of high school. I think it’s something else entirely to say you can’t work in NJ because of those memories. If you were my kid, I’d think you were either using it as an excuse to go to college OOS or that you hadn’t emotionally dealt with whatever’s been making you so unhappy. Either way, you wouldn’t be going back to school anywhere until I was sure you were ready.
It’s too bad that you’re getting to go to college OOS and your siblings are going to be restricted to NJ. Maybe if you compromise with your parents a little they’ll lighten up enough to provide your siblings with the same opportunities that they’re giving you.
Unless your family provide your a job and want you to inherit the family business, I don’t really see how practical is this request. After college, my kid will go wherever she takes the job. Regardless of going to college in state or OOS. When I retire, I may move closer to one of my kid.
You have to think in practical terms: TWICE you had holds on your account. It means you must earn as much money as possible. If you’re healthy enough to keep long hours, try to do that. You CANNOT go back to NC for the summer if you don’t have a job - and because almost all jobs have been snapped up already, you have only a couple days before switching gears. It’s that simple. You cannot go to NC without a summer job waiting for you and you must earn as much money as possible (to alleviate the burden on your family).You have to be mindful of your family’s willingness to let you attend UNCW and costs to them; it’d be disrespectful of their sacrifices if you just went there for the summer because it’s fun and social and sunny and you like it. I know it is, but you must be earning money. That’s the flip side of going to school OOS. If you earn money in Wilmington, good for you. If you cant, then you must earn money in NJ. Earning money must be the drive here.
Just so you know, you need to look for that post-graduation job in September-October senior year. Yes, almost a year in advance. You want to have that contract in hand well before graduation. Which means planning your post-junior year internship in the Fall junior year (4 months from now you need to be working on it already). That means that when you go home for Christmas next year, you can tell your parents where you’ll be interning in the summer. It’ll solve a lot of problems.
You need to advocate for your siblings. It’s not fair if you get to go OOS and they don’t. First, where you go to college doesn’t imply where you find a job. You just go wherever the job is. Second, if you didn’t help your siblings, you’d be a rotten big brother, because you got to go and now they can’t, so the least you can do is help them, whatever it is they are interested in. It may just be going to school in Philadelphia or at SUNY. It could be joining you at UNC-W (which could effectively save money since you could share an apartment).
However, the main reason probably is financial - it’s possible you sucked up all the family finances by going to UNC W. So, when you speak, make sure you understand your OOS college costs a lot of money, be respectful for that and speak from the point of view of wanting your siblings to have the same opportunities as you, but with a cheaper price - explain that it’s quite possible your siblings would be able to find colleges that are actually cheaper than instate universities if they find colleges with merit for their stats. If the issue is financial: they can go OOS and not have to pay as much as for you (especially if their test scores are as good as yours and their GPA is better.)
There are LOTS of adults on this website willing to help your sister, for instance, find a good deal.
Help her get a CollegeConfidential account (she CANNOT use yours, it’s against TOS and would get you banned). Heck, tell your parents they can create an account and post in the “Parents Forum”.
Fact is, your siblings are URM so if they also bring geographic diversity to their private college, with decent stats they’d be prime candidate for preferential packaging - meaning OOS private universities could be cheaper if they applied 400+ miles.
In your case, it just happens UNCW was both the best fit and almost the cheapest university you got into, but even UNCW could be cheaper for someone who applies by November 1st and applies for Honors College and scholarships. (What are your sister’s stats?)
@austinmshauri it’s not that I can’t work in NJ because of those memories; it’s just that I’d rather distance myself from my hometown completely because of them. Working in Wilmington over the summer would go a long way towards that, I feel. I don’t necessarily like going from a decent on-campus apartment at school where all my friends are to a small apartment complex in my hometown where I still have to share a room, and I don’t get to see my old friends as much because either they’re busy or they don’t even make the effort of contacting me first, and I have to be in the town where I’m best known for painfully awkward/cringeworthy incidents no matter how old I am or how far away I’ve thankfully moved since then.
What compromise do you suggest I make with them?
@billcsho telling me that I will take it over without so much as even wondering whether or not I actually want to isn’t very practical, either.
So it’s not that you can’t work at home, you just don’t want to. I understand where you’re coming from, but I’d tolerate a summer at home if it meant the ability to continue to attend UNCW. You’re planning to do a semester abroad next year and an internship next summer, right? Spend this summer with your family and focus on those plans. I wouldn’t do a lot of talking about them right now though.
I’d quit talking about what you plan to do after graduation too. If your dad has a business and wants your help over the summer, try to fit that in. It won’t be long before you’ll be far away and not able to come home whenever you want. And try to think of your siblings when you speak. Are there any benefits they’d get from going away to school? Try to sprinkle some of them into conversations. It will take the focus off you and might help them.
@MYOS1634 of course, $ is the most important thing here. I need to earn as much as possible this summer. It’s imperative, really. I won’t go to live in NC this summer without a job; that would just be foolish.
My sister and I have talked about following in my footsteps before, but she doesn’t seem to want to do that. I think that telling her that she can get into the Honors College and get good scholarships would at least help her consider it. She’ll probably be a pre-Med student. I’ll advise her to look further afield, even though my dad doesn’t seem keen on letting her do that unfortunately. Then again, this time three years ago I had no interest in leaving the Northeast…
She has an account here, but she hasn’t posted yet.
@austinmshauri that’s a good point. It’s just that I felt that this was kinda the last chance to do so (because I wanted to watch the World Cup with my dad next summer); however, I realize that an internship in Wilmington the summer after junior year would probably be more practical. There are other…social…reasons I’d rather work and earn $ in Wilmington over the summer as opposed to NJ. And three months kinda feels like a long time. But summers always fly by.
I’ll talk more about my siblings from now on. I need to advocate for them; it’s my duty as a big brother.
Actually, your internship next summer won’t be in Wilmington. It’ll likely be in Charlotte or Raleigh, or perhaps Durham.
For now, have you hit Target, Walmart, Trader Joe, etc? What about all the real estate and rental agencies in Wilmington? These always look for people (plus you can bring up your nascent world language skills - beside English, my guess is that you speak Hausa or Igbo in addition to French, plus whatever language you studied in high school. You can put your level as “Basic” or “Elementary” or “Low-intermediate” or “fluent”, depending on the situation and add “with applied skills: Real Estate.” You can just check out real estate vocab sheets in these languages to make sure.)
We all understand you’d rather work in Wilmington. But the fact is, you don’t have a job there. If you get a job there, no problem, go. But if you don’t, make the best lemonade you can - use this opportunity to spend time with your family, earn as much money as you can, and help your dad in his business. Show interest for what he does even if you’re not interested for real. As for your high school friends, they’ve probably moved on. Right now, they too are closer to their college friends. You can see each other once a month but you’re no longer in high school. Your social life will come from your coworkers. You’re on your way to becoming an adult.
Don’t encourage your sister to look far away just to be like you, but rather, show her that if she wants to, she can do so at a lower cost than what you have to pay (with a higher GPA you’d have had scholarships). Present it in terms of giving herself alternatives. Listen to her and make sure she understands that with a good GPA and high test scores, she’ll get great scholarships at many schools, especially private schools.
Here is a reality check for you. You should be BUSY too this summer…even in NJ. You should be working one full time job…maybe more. Or two part time jobs.
In other words…the only thing you should be doing at home is…sleeping, and laundry, and helping out with some household chores.
One of my kids lived at home and worked every summer during college. We didnt see much of that kid at all. He worked from 3-midnight at least five days a week…as a busboy at a restaurant. He filled in as a dishwasher too. In fact…he did everything they asked him to do to get as many hours as possible.
The other kid worked full time in the summers in HS…and that also carried that kid into the summer feet freshman year of college…same job. She had a good track record with them. She also worked as many hours as possible, and picked up babysitting jobs whenever possible in the evenings.
Her other two college summers she DID work on campus at her college. But she had a full time job whichnwas fully lined up long before May.
In both cases these kids had their summer jobs a LONG time before May rolled around. In other words…you are very late to be looking for jobs…especially in a college town like Wilmington.
You can’t afford to be picky. Get a job…any job. And you can’t afford to be picky about the location this year either.
Next year…plan ahead better. Look for jobs MUCH earlier.
I always told my kids to go where the interesting job is. No need to come back home just for the sake of coming back home. DS1 went oos, and ended up having job offers on 5 states. He’s now halfway across the country doing exactly what he wanted to do, and we’re totally proud of him. With high salary and cheap cost of living, he’s living a lifestyle I couldn’t imagine when I was 23. Skype and text makes it easier to not miss him.
And if your sister is possibly premed, she needs to find a school where she can go almost for free. Howard possibly, or automatic merit schools. Depending on her grades she might also be a candidate for diversity scholarships at the OSU or Pitt
We told S to live where the most attractive and interesting job was–he’s 5000 miles from us in DC and thriving. We are delighted for him and on our way to see him!
D similarly is where her interests and jobs are, 2500 miles from us and happy.
I agree that planning and getting summer jobs and working hard to help defray school expenses are very important to minimize loans needed for financing expensive educations. S looked for summer jobs the prior summer and in the fall of the year, trying to finalize by February.
My daughter didn’t really want a summer job near home last year. She wanted to live near her boyfriend in a smaller town, with more limited transportation. Well, living near the boyfriend didn’t work out and after 6 weeks she came home and didn’t work for rest of the summer. NO money for anything at school, very little money for study abroad. She had a hard time finding a work study job because she waited too long. This next year she’s going to try to set it up before she goes back to school.
This summer is different. She’s already working one job renting bikes and boats in the city park and hopes to get another job at a movie theater (interview on thurs) It would be perfect if she could work 8-2 at the boathouse and then 4-10 at the movies. I told her to pick one day per week when she doesn’t want to work at all, and tell both jobs. She’s also picking up babysitting and dog sitting ($20/day for 4 days this week). She’ll get a bunch of babysitting jobs for the nights she’s not working. $$$
Also, if you work ALL the time, you have no time to spend any of the money.
- use this opportunity to spend time with your family, earn as much money as you can, and help your dad in his business. Show interest for what he does even if you’re not interested for real. As for your high school friends, they’ve probably moved on. Right now, they too are closer to their college friends. You can see each other once a month but you’re no longer in high school. Your social life will come from your coworkers. You’re on your way to becoming an adult.