<p>Question: About a week ago, I went on a college tour where many colleges recommended employment as a way to boost admissions chances. I was recently accepted for an unpaid internship at a local lab this summer. Would most colleges consider this employment, or would they prefer it if I found additional paid employment employment [...]</p>
<p>Depends on what the internship is for and what employment you can get.</p>
<p>Will your internship be related to your major? Will it take up all of your time (40 Hours/week)? How much will your job get paid? What will you learn from your job? Etc etc.</p>
<p>For me, I think that my job was more beneficial than an internship. I began working at 16 as a lifeguard and a swim lesson instructor. I then moved on to work as a swim lesson instructor at a small business where only me and my boss together taught 80 kids/week how to swim. I still teach those lessons but have also moved on to train lifeguards. How many people do you know that do that? Because my job is so unique and personal, I think it stood out more on my application than an internship would have. Additionally, my job pays a lot of money which is great, and come fall I will be opening my own business near my school to continue working and earning money to put me through a college.</p>
<p>You really need to way out the pros and cons of each job/internship. You should consider the money aspect, becasue where else will you be able to get money?</p>
<p>My son tutored college students in math throughout high school part time and also participated in summer science, mentoring, and entrepreneurship programs. He had short stints going door to door getting roofing referrals after a tornado and tying fence for a teacher. The fence job yielded hundreds of bug bites and knowledge of what it’s like to do that kind of work, though he enjoyed working with the teachers. The roofing job taught him how to do cold calls to adults when he was fifteen, and he paid our mortgage that month. The tutoring gave him experience working with many ages and gave him practice helping people who struggle at what he foes well. It also gave him a good argument for skipping prevalent since he was already tutoring students in college prevalent. He is during his senior year he did an unpaid internship at an observatory. He was homeschooled that year, so he had the flexible schedule required. Three of his summer science programs gave him research experience. He did that to learn, but it was probably a factor in admissions since other students had access to major universities and magnet school programs allowing them to do beefier research with available labs and mentoring. Maybe you can do both an unpaid internship in your field and work, with one or both being part time.</p>