<p>Hi parents!</p>
<p>I wanted to ask for your opinions on how to balance a job offer and a potential job offer.</p>
<p>I applied for several on-campus jobs, and I've received a solid offer as tech support. The position starts on Wednesday (the 28th), and I interviewed yesterday (this past Thursday).</p>
<p>I also interviewed for another position on-campus today (Friday), and they told me they would "get back to me." This is the job I would prefer, because it's working more with programming and in areas of campus activism that I am passionate in and provide ongoing student leadership development. I'm not at all optimistic about my chances, as it's more of an active role on campus, and I'm currently a first-year student, but this is above and beyond an amazing opportunity.</p>
<p>Would it be acceptable to inform the second department of my job offer, and ask them to get back to me by Tuesday, explaining the time constraints, or would that be pushing it? I feel bad for 'stringing' the first department along, but at my interview, I was told that there was a waiting list because students drop out at halfway points during the semester for things like lab jobs.</p>
<p>Any other observations or words of advice?</p>
<p>(Edit: As a sidenote, I'm no longer sure which forum this would fall under. Sorry in advance, mods.)</p>
<p>I think it’s acceptable to tell the people with the 2nd job that you need to commit to another offer by a particular date and were wondering if it would be possible for them to let you know before then. There’s nothing wrong with asking. Of course, they might say they won’t be ready with a decision by then which is something you’ll just need to accept and make whatever decision you think is best.</p>
<p>btw - Some of the tech support positions are good ones in a few ways, chief of which some of them allow you to do HW in between support calls. You can get paid to do HW and kill two birds with one stone. Another possible advantage is that depending on what it entails, you might end up supporting professors and admins which can get you connections to a bunch of people. </p>
<p>Of course, the programming position might be good as well. Keep in mind that some of the ‘programming’ positions are more like data entry positions, especially if you don’t have a CS degree or aren’t well on your way to completing one. Make sure you know exactly what the duties would be.</p>
<p>Note - the above comments are general ones - your particular positions could be any variation of the above.</p>
<p>So, I sent that email, and got a response just now (which is fairly surprising for a Friday night, but I’m not complaining).</p>
<p>I did get that second job (I’m so excited that I screamed out loud).</p>
<p>Thanks for your advice/help-- I had a moment of indecision, and I’m now just really excited and happy and thanks again!</p>
<p>(And as a moment of clarification, when I said ‘programming’, I meant campus-wide programming. This is a job as a part student assistant, part program assistant for the campus multicultural diversity initiative, which is something I’m interested in. I was looking for second, non-work-study jobs, and so applied to all open jobs, including the tech support job (which was really a customer-service-job, the only reason I imagine I got it, with zero tech experience)).</p>
<p>^^ Sounds great - you got the one you wanted! </p>
<p>I’m in the computer business and deal with CS a lot so when I heard ‘Tech Support’ and ‘programming’ I was thinking in the computer sense.</p>
<p>Have a good year.</p>