For family reasons my D wants to be at home for summers. Her college offers internship support that sounds like it would work for a position at home if she/we find or create the opportunity.
Have you or your kid ever done that?
Ideas about businesses or organizations to approach?
We live in a small city (big town) in a rural area. D is majoring in languages, very unlikely to find anything in that field around here. She is also interested and very experienced in Art. She reads a lot and frequents the library so that is one place that comes to mind. Likewise, we have a very small art museum that would be a possibility.
Would like to hear about nontraditional, outside the box internship ideas that don’t require travel or staying at college all summer.
I think those stipends are more for kids taking unpaid internships in fields like politics or publishing, where they need to cover living expenses away from home. At my D1’s college, they were pretty competitive to get, too.
Well I am hoping the financial support might go toward wages (even at minimum wage level) since we can’t afford to give up summer earnings and I can cover room and board at home per usual.
Details of the college’s plan not known yet but they just got a big donation for this very purpose, making internships affordable and available for all. It’s a small enough school that it might be personalizable.
D is less than enthused about the whole idea, thinks there might be a paper required or something similar, doesn’t have a good handle on the value of internships. As in other endeavors, I’m trying to do some preliminary groundwork to be able to present some appealing options. The staying at home makes it difficult but under our particular circumstances I totally support her choice.
I guess it depends on what her reasons are for wanting to be home – but I’d say a summer or two spent away from home (on campus in research or in some kind of internship in her intended field of work) can go a long way in landing post-graduation employment. It is hard to “make up”'an internship. Maybe she could do something part time at the art museum, and get a part time paid job as well.
Both my sister and SIL majored in languages. Both had entry level jobs, one as a first job and one as a job while in college, at just above minimum wage answering the phone for French based companies. My sister just had to answer the phone and if there was no response, speak in French as it was most likely the family of one of the workers who spoke no English. My SIL was working for a small French telecommunications company and she took more detailed messages.
Both actually learned the businesses and went on to work in skilled positions at the companies (in English).
There might be businesses in your area that need relief help for vacations, that might need some documents filed, that might have one time projects in the summer that could be completed by a college kid.
@alooknac I would approach your city and county offices as well as the school district and the chamber of commerce. Are there organizations that provide health care to people who cannot afford it and could use office staff? Positions in the non medical side of your hospital such as social services? Could she create an art program that could travel to different home day care centers?