If he struggles with finding employment encourage him to volunteer. He should be learning how to network and socialize. He needs character building activities for personal development.
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I am not worried about the money so much. It doesn’t sound like he is irresponsible or planning to freeload.
I am more concerned, as I said, that he might think the goal is academic perfection, not finding a passion or just being employable.
But I am also wondering if he might be depressed or on the spectrum or something else. He sounds very similar to a friend’s son in some ways. Not so much the job/extracurricular issues, but in his relationship with his parents. He is a brilliant kid (also a CS major), but he struggles with depression and has a very detached relationship with his parents. They don’t understand why. They are both bright, successful engineers, and have a very bright older daughter with whom they have a warm relationship, but there is a barrier with their son.
I don’t mean to label or diagnose and use those terms just as examples. But maybe there is something different going on because he doesn’t sound like an entitled kid.
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Shouldn’t the focus be on a summer job for 2023? It’s a bit late maybe to find a part-time job during the semester, but presumably his summer is wide open. I confess to being a helicopter parent. My kids initially lacked confidence and needed a push to file applications. I looked online and found internships and REU’s and bombarded my kid with suggestions of where to apply. I assume the OP’s kid’s career office has a recruiting platform (probably Handshake) where he can research jobs. And you can look on Indeed or LinkedIn or BuiltIn.com.
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for a summer job, many technology camps are desperately hiring. either day or sleepaway. My D does staff engagement and recruitment for several camps and she recently put on a webinar on how the soft skill you learn working at camp can really help a resume. you have to work in a team, you have to make decisions, etc etc.
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D1 confessed to me that she hates manual work, so she will always strive to work so she doesn’t need to do it. At this time she does no cleaning, cooking, laundry, or that much child caring.
As long as people will do what they need to do to support their life then it’s fine. As a parent I am not here to enable it.
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I don’t think you need to stop supporting him. If he has a chance to TA, or work with a professor, it would be good to pursue those opportunities.
Summer internships are often after junior year, though some are after sophomore year. There may be a backlog of candidates due to COVID so he could wait until summer 2024, but he needs to be aware of the need to apply early. The career office and CS dept. should be able to provide info for that.
One of my kids graduated in CS quite awhile ago. He TA’ed and did admissions’ website and had summer internships. He interviewed in fall of senior year and has had great jobs since, but things were better in the tech sector back then.
I know a recent CS grad who worked in a restaurant, didn’t do internships though he TA’ed once (declined a second time). He is working at Trader Joe’s after graduation, and working his way up. He is happy. The tech sector isn’t great right now, and some kids are smart but thrive in unexpected directions.
Sounds like your kid is smart, a hard worker, and in the process of finding himself so to speak. Good luck!
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My kids are all grown up and working professionals. I’ll admit I did not have this issue whatsoever with my kids as they are driven, motivated types. Never had to push them.
That said, every summer during their college years, they worked in their respective fields away from home. We did not financially support them in the summers.
They also knew that once they earned their final degree, they would be on their own financially. From their final graduation day, both have 100% supported themselves in their fields living away from home.
I really think this ought to be an expectation for your kid…working and supporting himself in the summer and know that has to be what happens upon graduation. While my own kids wanted to do these things anyway, even if we didn’t set it up as an expectation, I DO think it should be an expectation. We paid for their education and they didn’t have to pay for that, but they did support themselves in summers and upon graduation.
While it would be good for your son to have internships, volunteer work, or paid work in his field to have on his resume by the time he graduates, it also helps to have ANY type of work, even at Starbucks or McDonald’s, to be able to show he has held a job and the responsibilities that go with it. Otherwise, his resume is going to be practically empty as employers don’t just hire based on GPA.
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Another thing to discuss with him is the need for references, usually three, for job applications. Both of my kids asked and relied on professors for those recommendations. If your son doesn’t attend most of his classes, he’s missing opportunities to develop relationships with his professors. If he decides to apply to graduate programs, he’ll definitely need references from professors.
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This is the part that worries me. It sounds like in your gut you know there is something that is not ok about your relationship.
While I 100% agree with my fellow posters about having him find work, any work, and learn what that world is about, if it were my kid, I would first arrange some family therapy over the summer when he is home with you, to see if you can work on your relationship, and get to a point where he won’t ‘hate’ you for having him take more initiative with his own life. An objective 3rd party can really help. I’m hoping for the best for you all! 
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Thank you for pointing that out. There is a detachment feeling, and I think that adds to why we are cautious to taking steps that could push him away further. What to do, what to say, if we didn’t have a barrier it would SO much easier.
That detachment could be a natural stage. Actually, from both reading and personal experience, I think some kids who were especially connected to parents, need to detach for a period in order to achieve independence. It can actually mean that the relationship was good, but needs to change. Part of that change is also that the kid now makes their own choices (granted, you are still paying for things).
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My son was a comp sci major. We did not make him work during the school year, but we did stress that working during the summer was important. We were lucky that my brothers work in the industry so during high school he did some job shadowing and impressed one so much he hired him for the following summer (the one after junior year) and he continued doing limited projects for him during the school year his senior year. We nagged him to look for internships as a freshman. He missed the first job fair and got nothing out of the second one, so it was back to working for my brother. The next summer he was more clued in and got an internship which then was withdrawn thanks to the 2008 financial crisis. Luckily by then he had a network of friends in college who were able to point him to places that still had openings. The summer after that he interned at Google and they offered him a job making his senior year of college very relaxed. He never had any interest in doing research, he was so low maintenance that he had plenty of money his account that he didn’t need to work during the school year. He’s been gainfully employed at the same job since he graduated. Oh and while he was a stellar student in high school, in college he really only got A’s in the courses that interested him, so he was only on the Dean’s List his first semester.
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Not helpful to OP, but just adding to the anecdotes here. Our son’s first job/paycheck* came after college graduation. He’d never held a civilian job prior. HS summers were consumed earning his Boy Scout Eagle rank, then the Army kept him busy (jumping out of helicopters, blowing stuff up, learning to drive a tank) every summer while he was at the academy. He stepped into his first job three months after commissioning when he arrived at his first post. He’s worked his butt off ever since and will be gainfully employed the rest of his life. That’s one plus for the military.
*Cadets receive a small salary while attending the academy, so I guess he was “working” before graduation.
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He was not sitting around all summer playing videogames-whatever the Army had him doing in the summer was the equivalent, or greater, than a regular job in terms of showing up on time, teamwork, responsibility.
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Of course. I’d never accuse him of idleness. My point was that he’d never had to apply for or work a civilian job. But the military is a whole 'nother animal. Not really relevant to thread.
I agree with all the good advice given to the OP so far.
I like the idea of having him explore jobs at summer coding camps for kids. If you don’t mind funding him, lots of non-profits need help with web design. Schools and businesses often have data analysis they’d like to do but don’t have the resources to do (especially getting data from where it resides to where it can be analyzed.)
At this point, as much as resume building, this is about figuring out where he’ll be happy putting his skills to use.
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I am not dissing volunteering in any way.
But it is meaningfully different from paid employment.
Years ago I supervised a team of volunteers (I was also a volunteer) for an organization in my town. One of the volunteers- smart, talented, capable- was a perpetual problem. Showed up late, always needed to leave early, called in sick ten minutes before she was supposed to show up. Fantastic when she was “on”, but never seemed to understand the ramifications on everyone else when she was sloppy or couldn’t be bothered to anticipate her personal life.
She asked me to write a letter of recommendation when she was wait-listed from her first choice college and I declined. She was shocked- why not? I asked her what she thought those meetings with me were about when I told her “your work is fantastic when you are here, but it’s dangerous for the children you are supervising when you don’t show up, leave early, etc.” or “If you aren’t prepared to commit to the times your are scheduled, we need to find another role for you in the organization which doesn’t leave everyone scrambling when your schedule changes at the last minute”. And she’d promise, promise, promise it would get better.
She told me “But it’s only volunteer work- it’s not like you can dock my pay if I don’t show up”.
Which is true. In a paid work environment she’d have gotten her three warnings and then let go. She’d have had her pay docked for leaving early. And that would have either fixed the issue or not, but there would be actual consequences to her.
Taught me a valuable lesson and no- I did not write her a recommendation. I told her honestly that if she thought “She’s great when she’s on but she’s irresponsible otherwise” would get her off the waitlist, I’d be happy to write a letter- and she backed down.
If your son can’t find a job than volunteering is a great alternative- but not quite the same in terms of how the work of paid employment operates. As my first boss told me (age 16, and I never forgot it) “This is capitalism. You don’t work, you don’t get paid”. I had asked to switch days with another employee because I had a final exam to study for; boss said “No switching, Too much trouble.”
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When I was 17, I worked as a receptionist in an office. The summer before my senior year, my parents planned a family vacation. I knew my boss, a hard-nosed woman, would not be pleased. I don’t know what we were thinking, but my mom called to talk to her about my taking time off. My boss said OK, but you can imagine the tongue-lashing I got! It was a good lesson.
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OP, it is a tough road to navigate, not knowing the right thing to do and worrying about alienating your kids even more by putting financial constraints. I would advise you to be very careful about how you talk to your kid about your concerns. We’ve been in similar situations, and we’ve made missteps along the way, Luckily for us, none that had serious repercussions.
Kids generally seem more detached from family as they try to work out their own way in the greater scheme of things. My kids were quite different even while they did similar things. The first year of college was a way for them to test their limits. Older kid refused to come home more than 2-3 times per semester, even though she was just a short drive away. Younger kid was a long drive away but wouldn’t call us. Calls started off being once every 2 weeks and dwindled to 2-3 every semester. It was difficult for us but we had to learn that it was a natural process of their growing up. We now have a very close relationship with one child and a more detached relationship with the other. But, I think that’s more due to their individual personalities than anything that we did.
I have an anecdote about our younger kid (CS major). His lack of motivation, though, was in his approach to studying in college. He is a smart kid but a procrastinator and obstinate as they come. He went to college, feeling like he had done enough to get there and didn’t want to work hard any more. His explanation to us was that he only cared to get As in the classes for his majors, the rest he didn’t care about. We let it go that first year. He had a 3.0 gpa and struggled to find internships, even though he had interned at a well-known tech company while in high school. His friends, who didn’t share his philosophy about non-major classes got their foot in the door at many top companies. The higher gpa helped them there. It was a tough lesson for him even though he did find an internship that year.
We had a serious talk with him during that freshman summer about grades and his allowance being curtailed if he didn’t put in more effort. We told him that we would only pay for tuition, room and board and for tickets to fly home. He would have to save his summer earnings to use during the academic year for any other expenses. He wanted to join a fraternity, we put conditions on that as well — he had to maintain good grades and pay for it. Now, 3.0 wasn’t bad but it was the lack of effort that concerned us. He was coasting and didn’t want to put in the work to bring up his grades. I’m not sure any of what we did worked. It was the example of his friends better success in getting great internships that motivated him. He couldn’t apply to some internships because they had an automatic gpa cutoff of 3.2. That stung!
He learned to his cost that while coasting was fun, he had to put in some real work to get where he wanted. Boy, did he have to work hard the next 3 years to make up for his slackness that first year!
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I have been fortunate to avoid recommendation requests from poor volunteers, but I love writing job and scholarship recommendations for great volunteers. I point out that we really see a person’s work ethic when they aren’t being paid or receiving any sort of compensation beyond satisfaction in doing a great job and in being part of a terrific enterprise.
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