I did tell her what to say (and what not to say) beforehand. She chose to ignore the advice.
I have worked fast food before. It was hard. And my DH worked retail jobs on his feet for 8-12 hr a day for years early on in our relationship & early in our marriage. We know very well how physically taxing it is.
To be very frank, my DD needed a dose of reality. She needed to see and realize first hand what a life of manual labor is like. And so far, the reality of that is sinking in. After the first week, she said unprompted, “I get it now. Now I understand why you guys talk about getting an education.” She’s having to work with adults who have no other choice but to do this sort of thing full time in order to support themselves.
It’s one thing for Mom & Dad to TELL you that an education is important. It’s another thing to see it and experience it yourself.
And it’s already taught DD a greater appreciation for people who work in the service industry.
In my opinion, volunteering once in awhile at a soup kitchen is a different experience than taking orders and handing out food in a fast food joint.
FWIW, we were at In & Out the other day and 1 of the young adult employees was just getting off of work…she had on a Swarthmore sweatshirt.
S24 worked for a commercial moving company last summer (and likely will pick up some shifts this summer) and he was like “holy moly this is hard work”. He also had an appreciation for having coworkers you can talk to and comiserate with during the day. The crew he worked with were all Spanish-speaking only and sadly the 6 years of Spanish he has had in school does not mean he can carry on a conversation . He enjoyed working with them but they were all much older and they couldn’t really talk to him because he couldn’t understand. He knows he needs to be someplace where he can work and socialize at the same time. Luckily, here in our town, pretty much everywhere has high schoolers working all summer.
D24’s shifts on Sat and Sun weren’t so bad. One lady last night even gave her a tip. She was pretty stoked about that. It was slow, so she got to leave a little early each day.
The med school day camp starts today. Scheduling manager at McDonald’s scheduled her to work when she told them she can’t be there. Yep, that’s happened to both Mom and Dad before, kiddo. Contact the manager and remind them of when you CAN come in and tell them that you’ll be there at the time you told them you can start during this day camp week.
Also, I think that Guilford College might be added to the list.
This feels like the year that will never end. D24 is still in class until Wednesday, and then has four days of exams. We are ALL so done at this point.
Add to that the fact that her summer job has kicked in to high gear and her year-round job has been scheduling her extra hours, as there’s been a family emergency that has precluded a number of the owner’s kids from working…she has worked 30+ hours for the past two weeks (on top of her real full time job of going to school). Yea…she’s tired. She is going on a four week trip out of the country in July, so I think she’s just keeping her eye on the prize and making money while she can with the idea that she’s going to be enjoying some well-deserved time off before too long.
We have not talked about college stuff at all in a couple of weeks (honestly, I’ve hardly seen her with this crazy schedule). We may pick it up again after school gets out next week. We need to pick a couple of days to go visit some schools in upstate NY. Hoping to do that before she leaves on her vacation.
I’m glad to hear it’s going better. It is hard not to associate her experience of the work with my past experience (lower-middle class family, dad lost his job for a while, I was required to work over the summer to give my parents $1000 for college expenses. I worked 2 jobs, Burger King and a toy store. My mother promptly blew all the money I gave her and more on food and impulse purchases (she was a compulsive overeater). Little brother was never required to work and was funded for social activities during college. I worked pretty much the whole time. Surprise—I’m not making my daughter do it.
It is the first full week of summer. I have talked with S24 about his summer plans (which he has none) and encouraged him either to a) get a job or b) hustle on Eagle Scout requirements and really get 'er done. So, he has chosen to work on Eagle Scout requirements and I asked him to get me a list of his remaining requirements by tomorrow. He also needs to schedule his driving lessons.
We talked briefly about getting college visits done this summer. I told him I would take him to UW LaCrosse and St. Norbert. He asked to also to go UW Eau Claire.
That’s three, that’s probably enough. Big Bro is starting at UW Stevens Point this fall and so I will get S24 up to see that campus as well.
Baby steps…
I am excited to say that I just got offered and accepted a new job! I had mentioned back in March that my current position was being completely overhauled due to grant contingencies so I have been looking for something else. I will be working as a school nurse in a local school beginning at the end of August. I am thrilled as it is a wonderful little school and I get to go back to clinical nursing (I had been doing mostly admin for four years). Awesome work schedule too Now I can enjoy my entire summer OFF until August 28!
Day 1 of the summer scrubs day camp was today. D24 loved it. She had a lot to say about it…
day started off with introductions and a scavenger hunt
1 other kid from her school is attending this, too.
1 kid from Flagstaff. 2 students from out of state. She said the rest appear to mostly be from the greater Phoenix area.
lunch provided for free. Mexican food. She said it was just ok. Not spicy enough.
had 2 sessions with different physicians. One from Family Medicine. That dr taught everybody how to do stitches. They got to practice on “these fake skin blobs” and doing stitches “is kind of hard.”
afternoon session was with an Emergency Medicine dr, who demo’d how to do an ultrasound. He demo’d it on 2 of the students. D24 thought this was pretty great.
came home with a bag of loot, which included a syringe shaped pen (this was her favorite item), a tshirt, set of scrubs to wear on Thurs and Fri, U of A College of Medicine notebook, water bottle, pair of sunglasses.
Day 2 of the summer scrubs day camp is done. D24 had lots to say about today’s activities:
lunch was pasta & Caesar salad. She liked the salad dressing.
they did a lab session where they took their own blood glucose readings. Also ran some labs with fake urine (she said, “It totally looked like real pee”).
got training & practice on how to take vitals from a patient. Paired up with a lab partner and they took vitals on each other. She liked this.
there was a session w/othopedics, led by an orthopedic dr. Lab for this included training & practice w/a partner on how to do wraps and splints. She liked this session a lot.
also was a session w/a radiology dr. She said the radiology dr was “super old, like, old enough to be my grandfather” and “he had, like, NO personality, had NO sense of humor, and was super grumpy.” I told her that’s probably because most radiologists don’t get to play with others all that often.
they also “messed with a heart simulator. It was cool.”
“And we saw a model of the throat. A 2nd year med student presented that part.”
had to wear their scrubs today.
Said that the radiology dr told the group that it took him about 13 yr of education and training after undergrad to finally finish.
the orthopedic dr talked about how he’s 35 yr old, is just now finishing all of his training and education, gave up having a family, even had a long term relationship end because of it all. This really got D24’s attention. She talked a lot about it & said, “I’ve definitely decided that I do NOT want to become a doctor. It takes too long. I really like medicine, but I also want to be able to have a life. I don’t want to be in school & training forever. I don’t want to have to wait until 35 to have kids if I decide to have kids. I definitely want to be a PA.”
Inside my head, I was thinking, “Hallelujah!” …because, in my opinion, knowing what you do NOT want is half the battle. Very grateful she’s getting this summer camp experience this week.
Has she thought about being a nurse? You’re done in 4 years get to have a lot more direct patient care, and she could always go back to school later to become a nurse practitioner.
I’m going to talk to her about it. Have a good friend who has many years of experience in nursing, including being an NP…thinking of having D24 talk w/her!
My son has an interview with an admissions counselor for our state on Tuesday. This is for one of the top schools on his list. He is not very good at tooting his own horn. We have heard that many interviews are more like conversations. He has visited the school and really liked what he has learned about it. We are going to suggest reviewing more of the website, having a list of specific reasons he is interested in the school and having some questions. Encourage him to be himself and share some things he is passionate about. Kids this age just don’t have a whole lot of experience with interviews. Anything else we can do to support and help him prep? Thanks!!
Admission counselors have spoken to lots of 17/18 year olds who don’t have a lot of interview experience. It will be just fine.
I would tell him to remember an interview is a chance for both the interviewer and the interviewee to find out if they are a match. It isn’t just about him talking/sharing with the interviewer, but what he learns about the school and who the school think best represents them (because that what AO’s are doing - representing the school). It’s what I’ve told my kids when they’ve interviewed for jobs - use the interview to figure out if you want to work there, not just to try to prove they should hire you.
My daughter isn’t great at interviewing either. And has a hard time tooting her own horn. I think your suggestions to your son are good ones. I’m going to tuck those away for later this year when our kid has to do the same. Another option would be to have an extended family member or adult friend of yours do a practice interview with him, in case he’s uncomfortable with doing it w/you.
That is a good idea to have an extended family member or someone else practice with him. He is not always in the mood to accept our suggestions. You know “parents don’t know much” -I guess this is a normal developmental stage. Kids this age aren’t fully cooked yet. Yesterday he forgot suntan lotion at the summer camp he is volunteering at and got a mean sunburn and also forgot his instrument at school so couldn’t perform for the graduation this am. I tell myself their brains aren’t fully grown yet!
Like yesterday, when D24 got to her summer camp and realized, “oops, we were supposed to wear scrubs today,” followed by “Can you bring my scrubs to me?”
Or when I asked her if she had her ID with her and she said, “No, it’s at home. Why would I need that?”
Or the mini-adventure she and I had on Monday morning trying to figure out the map of how to get from the parking garage to the U of A building for the summer camp. I made her look at the printed map that the summer camp had provided us…she had no clue what to do. So I was like, “Here, turn the map this way. See this here? That’s the parking garage we parked in. See this building highlighted in green? That’s where you need to go. See this other marked building on the map here? That’s that building right there across the street. Now tell me what route you think we should take to walk there.”
…it left me thinking, “WTH? How did this kid survive in France for 9 days like this?”
She said, “I’m really bad at reading maps. Can you do it?” I said, “No. You need to figure it out. Because in a year, you’ll be figuring this out on your own and Mama ain’t gonna be telling you what to do all the time.”
I’ve done about five hundred interviews, and been within earshot of many more done by others. For the first few minutes the applicant is nervous (or faux-overconfident… same thing), then they notice hey this isn’t so bad after all, and things settle into a nice interchange.
Sometimes they have a lot to say about themselves, while other times it’s more questions for me… or maybe I end up carrying the conversation. Fine whichever way – I’m just getting a sense as to their personality and level of motivation towards academics and/or other things. I will eventually ask a few things related to specifics I need for my evaluation form if those didn’t happen to come up in the conversation.
It’s quite obvious to any of us who have done this for a while that the subject is “teenagers”, so parents need not worry too much over how their unpolished progeny will fare in their first real interview situation. We know what to expect : )
As for practice interviews etc, sure… if that’s something the student really wants. But it typically takes me a couple of extra minutes to get past heavy coaching (teenagers are lousy actors) so that I can just talk with the person in front of me.
Thank you for sharing your experience! He actually did his first college interview in person at another college while we were there for a tour. It was late on a Friday before a holiday and the admissions counselor suggested they meet. It was great for him to have his first one without having to think about it much. And it was a school that ended up lower on his list so good practice one. I really appreciated the counselor taking the time with him.
. He enjoyed working with them but they were all much older and they couldn’t really talk to him because he couldn’t understand. He knows he needs to be someplace where he can work and socialize at the same time. Luckily, here in our town, pretty much everywhere has high schoolers working all summer.
Now I can enjoy my entire summer OFF until August 28!
