<p>"How many HS students actually get the choice of a paid/unpaid internship anyway? I work for a non-profit public library and the only job we allow HS students to do is shelve books and we have a fairly rigorous screening process because we have found that teen volunteers are the most likely to stop working whenever they feel like it. </p>
<p>The college students can hardly find internships, paid or unpaid"</p>
<p>Yes!</p>
<p>Real internships (I'm not talking about fake ones in which a family friend lets one come into the office and warm a seat occasionally) -- paid or unpaid -- are very difficult to obtain. They require a strong commitment from the employer in terms of time (supervising h.s. and college students is time consuming), and consequently there is a rigorous screening process for them.</p>
<p>A student with no marketable skills or job experience of any kind (Yes, having worked at even a place like McDonalds is a big plus!) or extensive volunteer experience representing a longterm commitment with real responsibilities is not likely to be taken on as an intern.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, unlike when we were young, it is virtually impossible to get a job after college without having had an internship, preferably one in a field related to the one that one wishes to be employed in after graduation. So, yes, working a job -- any job -- in high school is something that can help put a student on track to reach whatever their dreams are when it comes to careers. </p>
<p>As for the idea that teens who are working despite coming from comfortable backgrounds are somehow taking jobs from people who need the jobs more, the same could be said for the second adult earner in many families. The same also could be said for people who work despite having a large inheritance. In the lifetime of many parents posting here, the same used to routinely be said about women who chose to enter the workforce. Such reasoning was bogus then and is bogus now.</p>
<p>And, as a mother whose 18-year-old son IS working at a 7-11 this summer before he goes off to college this fall, I find the "slushie pouring" label very derogatory and condescending. Despite the insinuations about the fact that he couldn't possibly be learning anything there via life lessons, you are very wrong. Many have already listed the virtues of such so I won't repeat them.</p>
<p>I am very proud of him and his summer job, most importantly because he took the initiative and got it on his own without Mommy and Daddy's "help" (and we are both in career positions where we could have put in a word or two somewhere to help him get something "better" - geesh!)</p>
<p>And I agree with some previous posters - after reading this thread, there is something that gets under my skin about this whole discussion. I really don't like the looking-down-your-nose attitudes of a few here at what most would consider typical summer employment for teens, at least where I live.</p>
<p>I think it's worth remembering that the OP's daughter was choosing between a minimum wage job and some volunteer work. Not between a minimum wage job and some hot-sounding internship, volunteer or otherwise. Not between a minimum wage job and a volunteer position that was tied to her interests. </p>
<p>That said, my employer that does have some paid summer internships for high school students, the type that look pretty glamorous on a resume. It's an outreach effort for us. The kids we get are generally bright and motivated (though one summer I had one slacker who falsified his timecard; we sat him down in a room with 3 levels of management, read him the riot act about his behavior, and fired him. I like to think that the humiliation of that experience at age 16 or 17 kept him on the straight and narrow ever after). The work we give them is stuff that is tedious rote processing for the regular employees, but definitely a step up from just filing. The effort and supervision we have to put in to train the high schoolers is pretty much balanced out by the time savings of not having to do this rather mundane stuff ourselves, so monetarily it's a wash. Some of them come back in future summers, or even end up working here after college. If a high schooler had to choose between one of those internships and McDonald's, I'd say heck yeah, take the internship. But this is the exception, not the rule.</p>
<p>Absolutely take the job. The money she will earn is way down on the list of benefits to an ordinary minimum wage job. The list of life lessons this girl will learn is long. How 'bout getting along with all kinds of people? How 'bout learning that the customer (or the boss) is always right? How 'bout learning to deal with unpleasant work hours and all that goes with getting to work on time? How 'bout learning to be a team player with teammates that are really different from you?? The list goes on. I firmly believe all kids need menial jobs, if only to learn how the real world operates. They are so often sheltered, pampered and coddled. Not saying this is the case with OP, but it IS true all too often! ...Someday I'll tell you how I really feel!!</p>
<p>My children were and are "children of privilege" by any rational standard. Neither one has gotten spending money from us since they turned 16. They have always worked. In high school, both worked retail jobs. (My son also has a regular summer job that let him earn enough not to have to work during term-time at college, although starting next year he will anyway, since he wants to take classes next summer.) </p>
<p>Apart from the generalized benefits of learning how to get along and how to be responsible in a work environment, they got much more specific benefits. For my daughter, her job provided lots of strokes that she wasn't always getting at school, and an outlet for her artistic side that her academic curriculum did not allow her to pursue in school. She learned that her intelligence could translate into doing things better, for herself and for others, and also that she could make things that people would pay money to buy. My son had a similar experience, minus the artistic part. Both developed real expertise in their respective products; both learned how to translate that expertise into sales -- not at all an unvaluable skill.</p>
<p>My daughter did spend most of her 11th-12th grade summer in a highly selective academic enrichment program (highly selective because free). My son didn't.</p>
<p>Now, did any of this have a discernible positive effect on their college admissions? No. Not the academic enrichment program, not the seemingly pedestrian jobs. College admissions would have been a crappy reason to do anything.</p>
<p>I have a coworker who managed a hot dog stand for 2 years after high school before starting college. He became student body president of his LAC. We both think that he wouldn't have been elected without the experience of dealing with the wide range on people he encountered.
I have no idea whether the work impacted his college application results. I would have liked it, had I been a reader!</p>
<p>Jobs the kids in our neighborhood are working this summer: lifeguard (a couple of the college students we know), landscaping; retail at the mall; fast food; snack stand at the pool. I know two who have "Internships" -- one for pay, one without. Both are extraordinary young people. S1's job (teaching in an air conditioned building!) is pretty high on the food chain. He was happy to get it, as most of the counselors this program hires are already college students. (This was a case where the ECs proved really useful.) </p>
<p>One of the useful parts of the job process is the search and interviewing itself -- and following up to makes sure things are taken care of, hours and schedules, etc. No way I was getting involved in that other than to provide transportation. S1 knew about the place he's working because he had been there as a camper in middle school and a friend worked there last year. S2 does a lot of the catering work at our synagogue and a couple of members suggested places he might consider. (No contacts made, though, and the place he wound up he found on his own.) Again, ECs point to an interest and a motivated kid can take the experience from those ECs and parlay it into paying work that is enjoyable.</p>
<p>Once S1 gets started, though, he'll be going to work via public transit. (I secretly hope this will motivate him to want a driver's license. I fear this will reinforce his pleasure with reading/napping while someone else negotiates traffic. ;))</p>
<p>I have found this thread to be thought provoking for me. Forget about this specific kid or situation - I found myself thinking why I encourage any young person to take at least one really hard job. </p>
<p>So many of the reasons have been mentioned, but one incident keeps coming to mind.</p>
<p>Last year as we were driving back from Bulldog days, we stopped at a truck stop for gas and restroom break. We passed the truckers and the waitress on our way to the restroom. These people looked pretty weary. The waitresses were older and I suspect they had put in many a long day on their feet.</p>
<p>As we walked outside, my daughter looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "Why have I been given this opportunity?"</p>
<p>I have never been prouder of her. In that moment she understood that there are people who will work hard all of their lives and still be scraping by to make ends meet. She didn't see herself as better than these people, just luckier to have been born with the brains (and determination) to have an easier life. </p>
<p>I would hope that she would have understood that anyway, but I think her lowly jobs have helped her to see just how blessed she has been.</p>
<p>WNP, your daughter's response brought a tear to my eye, you must be very proud.</p>
<p>I agree that EC's can help guide a student to a summer job. My S loves music, both playing and listening, and that love brought him to apply as an usher at a major summer music venue. He applied on his own, went on his first interview (which will help with college interviews), and is enjoying the work. </p>
<p>I think we need to be careful her, not all hourly jobs are total drudgery...I worked at a donus shop in HS where the owner was a MENSA member and enjoyed getting to know the regulars. Is it something I wanted to do for a career? No, but I did learn things that a volunteer opportunity would not have taught me.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Curious: How many people here work for companies that hire h.s. students or allow them to do unpaid internships? If those options are available, how are they working out?
[/quote]
We have, and it hasn't worked out. They are more trouble than they are worth.</p>
<p>i can't believe everyone analyzed this simple question haha. get a job. you can't bury your face in books forever and volunteer your entire life. you have to develop some social skills, make some money for yourself, meet some new people, and have a little fun!!</p>
<p>So the take home lesson is that smart, industrious 17 year olds shouldn't even try to get unpaid summer internships anywhere, since no one will let them work for free anyway, and even if they did get one, they would be more trouble than they are worth. OK. Got it.</p>
<p>kenf, nobody said that. It's just that that internship should be complemented by a real, paying job, because you don't know for sure how much you'll learn at the internship, the job's money will teach financial responsibility, and it will tell future employers that you can handle "real" work with real responsibilities as well as whatever work you did as an intern. If you get an internship, great, but you should work too, because some things about working that summer job can teach you more than an internship ever could.</p>
<p>Also, summer jobs tend to have flexible hours, so you can intern during the day and work at night and on weekends.</p>
<p>"So the take home lesson is that smart, industrious 17 year olds shouldn't even try to get unpaid summer internships anywhere, since no one will let them work for free anyway, and even if they did get one, they would be more trouble than they are worth. OK. Got it."</p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, summer jobs tend to have flexible hours, so you can intern during the day and work at night and on weekends.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You think a 17 year old should be interning 8 hours a day and then working 4-6 hours per night? Work 9-5 at the internship then work 6-10 at 7-11?</p>
<p>My point is that, if you don't need the money, you are better off getting an unpaid internship than working a job like a concession stand. In response, people are saying that such internships are rarely available for high school students anyway. And that I am a naive fool for assuming such positions are either available, or can be created by persistence and industriousness, because high school students can't contribute anything anyway to an office. They are more trouble than they are worth. And if you CAN get one, you'll just sit on your butt all day doing nothing, and future employers will assume you sat on your butt all day doing nothing, and look down on the internship.</p>