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<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/magazine/why-are-harvard-graduates-in-the-mailroom.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/magazine/why-are-harvard-graduates-in-the-mailroom.html</a></p>
<p><< There is no “trade” except engineering, maybe, or CS that is learned in college. >></p>
<p>I disagree. I can think of quite a few “trades” learned in college.</p>
<ul>
<li>Accounting</li>
<li>Health-related fields including medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, psychology, etc.</li>
<li>Education</li>
<li>Information Technology & Management Information Systems</li>
<li>Law</li>
<li>Architecture</li>
<li>Social Work</li>
<li>Library Science</li>
<li>Technical Writing</li>
<li>Meteorology</li>
</ul>
<p>The list could go on and on.</p>
<p>*This is SO HARD for some kids because when they’re taking classes, they’re focused on taking classes.</p>
<p>it’s hard to find time for a disciplined job search–to make an appointment to get your resume and cover letter looked over by the career center; to research…*</p>
<p>Kids find plenty of time for social life. Poor dears.</p>
<p>^^ that snide remark was mean spirited and unnecessary. not ALL college students have “plenty of time for social lives”.</p>
<p>UMD–</p>
<p>While some of those trades require graduate work and a considerable financial and time investment, others are undergrad trades, particularly accounting. I had forgotten about that one.</p>
<p>ETA: it’s true that some kids have all that they can do to do the classwork, and that’s fine. They just have to start the job process where some kids begin when they are firstyears. But, just like not all kids can join the EC arms race in high school, not all kids can go to college and hold down the outside work. </p>
<p>but, I think most kids can work at McDonald’s in the summer. Just as a starting place. Work is work.</p>
<p>Degrees in such fields are also among the most popular.</p>
<p>In 2008–09, more than half of the 1.6 million bachelor’s degrees awarded were in five fields: business (22 percent), social sciences and history (11 percent), health professions and related clinical sciences (8 percent), education (6 percent), and psychology (6 percent).</p>
<p>[The</a> Condition of Education](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/tables/table-fsu-1.asp]The”>http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/tables/table-fsu-1.asp)</p>
<p>Bachelor’s degrees
Business 240,947<br>
Social sciences and history 124,658
Education 107,086
Health professions and clinical sciences 85,214
Psychology 73,636<br>
Engineering and engineering technologies 72,445</p>
<p>Associate’s degrees<br>
Business 95,897
Health professions and related clinical sciences 93,218
Engineering and engineering technologies 57,292</p>
<p>There was a recent article, in the WSJ I think, that said that the kids who are getting summer jobs tend to be the affluent kids with connections through their parents. </p>
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<p>I agree. D saw that with her Vanderbilt peers, and a young man I know at Columbia saw that with is peers. Nothing new, but it’s discouraging, just the same.</p>
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<p>I don’t think that any such thing applies for college graduates. That is, if the job requires a bachelor’s degree, then the “entry level” job also includes an expectation of some related work experience. Generally what I have seen in terms of advertised positions is that “entry level” equates to 2-3 years of work experience. That does not necessarily mean paid or full time experience, but employers expect to see something on the resume beyond the college degree. </p>
<p>I know that when I have done hiring in the past, I expected to see that. I mean, I personally would find it odd to see a 22-year-old who had never worked; it would make me think there was something wrong with the person. That doesn’t necessarily mean paid work – Blossom posted some great examples of volunteer experience to pick up skills a few posts back. </p>
<p>It may be that employers who come to campuses to recruit have different expectations, but that is just a small fraction of the employment market. Some large companies have budgets to be able to do on-campus recruiting and interviews; smaller companies and agencies do not – and many of the larger companies simply choose not to. Why recruit when they can just post job listings on their web sites and be inundated with resumes?</p>
<p>For jobs that don’t require a degree, then “entry level” often does mean first job. I mean, I am sure that Starbucks hires baristas with no prior experience, and certainly the jobs my kids got as teenagers didn’t require experience. But who wants to spend 4 years in college and apply for a job waiting tables?</p>
<p>My daughter graduated last year, and only one of her friends/acquaintances from high school and college have the “no entry level job is good enough for me” attitude. They have quite the range of jobs, including clerks in retail stores to paralegals to bartending to writing computer code. The one exception is going to law school next year because she couldn’t find a great job (and she didn’t look very hard).</p>
<p>My guess is that within the next 10 years, every one of them will get an advanced degree that will eventually result in a career. </p>
<p>I’m only writing this to say that I don’t know any kids sitting at home and bemoaning their lack of a job because what they really want to do is run a company.</p>
<p>As for finding internships/summer jobs while you are in college – I find it hard to believe that there isn’t time to do a job search. Unlike high school, college classes don’t take up that much time. Kids have plenty of free time in college.</p>
<p>With the growing number of unpaid summer positions, and the possible negative impact on financial aid, one might need to be affluent to accept (let alone find) a lucrative activity during the summer. </p>
<p>PS I am fully familiar with the concept of seeking grants or summer community service/work study for the summer. Those programs might, however, be much more prevalent at deeper-pockets institutions. Of course, according to some, this discussion should only be about elite schools. ;)</p>
<p>A kid would have to make a pretty good salary over the summer before it would have a significantly negative impact on financial aid. (Currently more than $6000 – see [Maximize</a> financial aid while keeping your summer job: The FAFSA income allowance](<a href=“http://www.custudentloans.org/2011/07/11/maximize-financial-aid-while-keeping-your-summer-job-the-fafsa-income-allowance/]Maximize”>http://www.custudentloans.org/2011/07/11/maximize-financial-aid-while-keeping-your-summer-job-the-fafsa-income-allowance/) )</p>
<p>Xiggi, I’m not talking about grants, elite schools, or anything else. I’m talking about getting a job- any job- and babysitting is fine, to put cash in your pocket, and then spending some time (not 100 hours per week) building marketable skills by volunteering.</p>
<p>The local hospital in my community is looking for the following:
1- Someone with good writing and organizational skills to help them put together a publication for their upcoming gala.
2- Someone outgoing with good phone skills to work in their media relations office.
3- People who like kids; performing arts experience a plus, to attend “clown college” and then work on the pediatric ward. Hours are flexible, training is included. Only requirement is a TB test which the hospital pays for.
4- Someone with strong math skills to help the team which coordinates clinical trials. Excel a plus but they will teach.</p>
<p>That’s one organization in one town. Each of these volunteer roles is suitable for a college kid; all have flexible hours which would allow a kid to earn money babysitting or mowing lawns or whatnot. None of these require “connections”. And frankly, none of them require much initiative in figuring out how to obtain work experience or marketable skills since these roles already exist.</p>
<p>All of these would be a better entry on a resume than the alternative- i.e. doing nothing.</p>
<p>Hi gang, </p>
<p>As I was just listening to Mayor Bloomberg as he was talking about internet week in NYC and he talked about NYC’s Made in New York Digital Map lets you see who’s hiring in the tech field.</p>
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</p>
<p>So I logged in [Made</a> In New York Digital Map](<a href=“http://www.mappedinny.com/#]Made”>http://www.mappedinny.com/#)</p>
<p>you can click all companies and there give you a list of companies and some will be highlighted in pink saying we are hiring. You click and it takes you to their database of open positions for example: I clicked Buddy Media because it was first and 39 openings came up including one for an Analytics Intern in NYC.</p>
<p>I hope it helps</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>The FAFSA exclusion for a student is currently at $5,250 and will rise to $6,000 next year. Coupled with earnings from non-study jobs, this places a burden on students who need to work to meet their expected contributions.</p>
<p>Fwiw, it is really problematic to use generic information to evaluate individual finances. There are plenty of elements (assets, savings, gifts) that might come into play, including plenty of discretion by financial aid officers.</p>
<p>cool link sybbie.</p>
<p>xiggi: there is a bit of a barrier to entry for the less affluent when it comes to the unpaid internship. Of course, if it is a summer internship, they can just do what many of us did when we were young and work in a restaurant at night. Many of us did that even after we got our first “career” job, in order to pay the bills.</p>
<p>It’s not easy out there, right now. The kids need to get creative, no doubt about it. But what is the other choice? To do nothing? You have to work.</p>
<p>The things I learn while playing Farmville ;)</p>
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<p>Blossom, for some reason, I believe that my position about the “system of expectations” is construed as an endorsement to … do nothing and use excuses to not start building a r</p>
<p>Xiggi, if I find out you were a clown I will love you even more than I already do!</p>
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<p>And mine wasn’t. I never had a paying job in my life until I was a summer associate after my second year of law school. In the nearly 33 years that I’ve been working since I graduated, I have never – not once – regretted that history for a single moment, or found it to be a handicap in any way. I’m extremely happy in retrospect that I did things the way I did, and grateful for the economic privilege that allowed me to spend my summers doing what I wanted. At the time, I used to say to people that I’d probably be working for the rest of my life, so why should I be in any rush to get started? I have never, ever believed in work for work’s sake. And I think I made the right decision for myself. </p>
<p>But that was just my experience, and I prefer not to make generalizations for others.</p>
<p>My D has one of those “trade” majors - accounting. Every one of her accounting friends had at least one career-related internship that they obtained through the campus recruiting system (no rich parents or elite connections!) Even so, it was a long grueling process of resume crafting/practice interviews/first interviews/second interviews/etc. that did consume weeks and months of time. That being said, they were all successful in the internship hunt.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what my point is here, except to throw out more anecdotal evidence. (My anecdotes always feel like outliers on CC, especially since they usually involve accounting.) D’s internship last summer was her first real job (outside of babysitting and dog-walking), so the one thing that she could highlight in her resume was her GPA. One of her interviewers told her they were always looking for work ethic and smarts, so in her case, at least they could tell that the “smarts” were covered.</p>