<p>OP, if your son is pre-med, make sure you check in to the pre-med forum here on CC.</p>
<p>There is a lot that he will need to do to get his ducks in a row–and starting from day one is a definite advantage.</p>
<p>Because your son doesn’t need to work just for the money aspect, he should bend his efforts toward getting those work opportunities that will strengthen his med school application.</p>
<p>He should look for appropriate volunteer and leadership opportunities. He should seek out opportunities to research / work in labs–even as a history major. Maybe he could get involved in some of the psychology labs?</p>
<p>He should definitely work on his all-important GPA, especially in his science and math classes.</p>
<p>@boysx3 Thank you; that is really great advice. I will look in on the pre-med forum here. @JHS regarding BS in History, like you said; not important; but the University of Kentucky does award that particular degree. My DS was told only a few people do it but it will get his required sciences in for pre-med.</p>
<p>Personally, I didn’t work until junior year (like your S, I was in a very good position thanks to merit aid that covered the vast majority of my expenses). The jobs I did get in junior year were in my field and carried on through senior year. Not only were the great prep for grad school, but one even resulted in professional connections that I am still utilizing and benefiting from 4 years after graduating. As a bonus to my parents, I even paid my university bill one semester of my senior year (though that was largely thinks to merit aid making my per-semester bills in the $3-4k range). My parents generally worked on a graduated financial independence system–they gave me spending money my freshman year, faded that out sophomore year, and discontinued it in junior and senior year. I also started buying my own books junior year. None of this was planned–it just sort of worked out that way.</p>
<p>My S was lucky too in that his uncle lived in the city where he went to college. He often babysat for my nephews and did odd jobs for my brother’s in-laws for extra cash. He also house-sat last summer and did quite well for himself. </p>
<p>I worked through college. heck I started working when I was 15. Work and school had nothing to do with each other. Work is what people in general do. I would suggest though, that you steer your kids away from degrading menial work and strive for upper class white collar jobs. The sooner they learn to excel and succeed rather than labor, the better. Not to exclude menial labor, I was a short order cook and worked food service many years but eventually in my Sophomore yr I began teaching photography. by time I graduated I was teaching three classes at a local HS adult ed dept. If your kid is a college freshman and has never worked, then that’s a whole different story. </p>
FirstToGo was a sociology major as an undergrad, she did great with her med school applications, and is headed off to med school next year. The med schools care about courses, GPAs, MCATs, and ECs … all of which can be done from any major. To be fair my daughter is interested in public heath so majoring in sociology did tie into her interest in med school.</p>
<p>I’m going to be a contrarian and recommend a job from the get go. Studies show students with jobs on average have better grades than those with out … my guess is because the job helps structure the students time and forces other free time to be used for studying. Numerous posts mentioned allowing the student to “settle in” at college before starting work later. I know I “settled in” as a freshman … right after class I found a soccer games, ultimate frisbee game, touch football game, or card game in which to paly … I “settled in” to wasting all the time from the end of classes until dinner time. My grades improved a ton (over 1.0 in GPA) at the same time I started working. (Another way at looking at this issue … at the vast majority of schools all the students on financial aid are allocated funds for work study jobs (so the majority of students have jobs … and lots of work study kids do great in school)).</p>
<p>Bottom line … you know your student better than anyone providing input on this board. If your student is very organized and focused than adding a job probably has no additional value beyond the extra cash… however, if your student is going to be tempted to waste the big swaths of unstructured time then having a job may well provide structure that helps their study habits also.</p>