Letters of recommendation

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>There's an internship I'm interested in. I'm pretty sure I'm a good guy for the job. But my heart sank when I read that one of the requirements for the job application is two letters of recommendation. I don't know about you guys but it's damn hard to get to know professors when 1) they teach giant lectures and 2) you're good enough with the material that you never need to go to office hours.</p>

<p>I did get one letter of recommendation last semester when I applied to my school's business program, but it was specifically tailored to the business school so I can't really re-use it. Would it be appropriate to ask that professor for another letter? If it matters, she taught me last Spring. But beyond her I don't really know any other professors well enough to get any letters beyond "He took my class, he was never disruptive, he got this grade."</p>

<p>What to do, what to do?</p>

2

<p>Ask that professor for another letter of recommendation. She might just be able to tweak it to fit the internship. That’s what one of my professors did. He just wrote one letter, but tweaked it for each internship I applied to. </p>

<p>As for the other letter, if you ask a professor that maybe doesn’t know you as well, they might ask for your transcripts or resume. They might even have you write the letter! This happened to me with a different professor lol. </p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

3

<p>yeah man, I found this internship that required a mind boggling 3 letters of rec… there’s no way inhell that program is going to get anyone. to get a decent letter from a large lecture professor, all the experienced old people tell me to go talk to that professor (but only if you had a good grade), explain your goals, why you want to apply to that program, maybe show them your resume and then they’ll be able to write you a personalised letter from just a few minutes of meeting, and that works.</p>

4

<p>Do they have to be from profs? Are you a freshman (or maybe a sophomore) for whom I imagine you could still use a high school teacher?</p>

<p>And yes, definitely ask the same guy to write you a new one/reword the old one.</p>

5

<p>^That. If you have a job or volunteer somewhere, could you get a letter from them?</p>

6

<p>I see the rationale behind getting reccomendations, but sometimes I don’t think these employers realize its not easy getting reccomendation letters from college professors when you’re like 1 out of 500 students they’re teaching.</p>

7

<p>Go to office hours your entire college career because of things like this. If you are an A-student and have no academic reason to go, think of subject-related items to discuss.</p>