<p>A summer with no job is not is not an option at our house since we haven’t provided entertainment or gas money for our children since they started high school. They always seemed to find jobs: lifeguarding, nanny, working for a caterer, teaching swimming lessons, McDonalds, internships, camp counselor, worked at a golf course, frozen yogurt shop. When D2 was not putting much effort into finding a summer job one year, I informed her that she would be volunteering 40 hours a week at a non-profit if she found no job. She ended up working/living at an amusement park that summer. Averaged 55-60 hours of work a week and banked most of her money as the park really wasn’t near any malls. Not the best job but she met other students from all over the country and many international students too. She had many life lessons that summer</p>
<p>My daughter worked as a counselor at an overnight camp the summer after graduation and will return this summer (summer after gap year/before freshman year). I think she’d like to go back at least one more summer before we start pressuring her to do something like a summer language program or internship.</p>
<p>She makes about $2K and has virtually no opportunities to spend money on anything other than laundry and toiletries. It’s not a terrific hourly wage, considering she’ll be there for >9 weeks. But, on the other hand, we don’t have to feed her all summer, either.</p>
<p>My daughter started cashiering in a supermarket two years ago and will be doing that again all summer. They offer a $1,500 per year scholarship as long as you put in a certain number of hours, so she will be working to get those hours in. They will probably train her to work in a different dept this summer, as they like to have the younger kids on the register. She has learned TONs working there, like how to deal with rude customers, how to make small talk with strangers, how to deal with some not so nice managers. Plus, her drawer has always come out perfect, to the penny, anytime she’s been audited, so she has certainly learned money skills.
It’s a bit tedious to be on a register for 6 or 7 hours, but she likes having that scholarship. Pays for her books plus some spending money.</p>
<p>My older son found computer programming internships in the summers he was in college. He had worked in computer programming before that on a freelance basis since high school since sometime in high school. </p>
<p>Younger son has worked in my architecture office, but has never had a job outside the family. Last summer he spent seven weeks in Jordan studying Arabic. He’s applying to internships this year. I really hope he finds something.</p>
<p>My daughter worked the last two summers at the on-campus job she got after freshman year (we live in the same town as her U). This year she is waiting to hear on a paid internship; she is also applying for unpaid internships, so I imagine she’ll do one or the other. She has a part-time job that she could probably keep through the summer. I highly encourage her to work. Her jobs have opened doors for her.</p>
<p>D worked in a local movie theater her last spring in HS/summer after HS graduation and helped pay for her first semester in college. After her first year, we had to travel for three weeks, and she was not able to find any job for the remaining two months of summer since nobody seemed to be interested in hiring for a such short period of time…So that summer time was mostly wasted. After her second year, she worked in sleep away camp as a horseback riding instructor/counselor (low-paid, very stressful job). After third year, she did summer research in a lab in her school (in addition to paying a stipend, the school even waived expected summer earnings!). I believe that in all her jobs she gained very different and very valuable experience. She’s graduating in May and looking for a job…</p>
<p>No summer job is a waste of time. A job of any sort prepares a kid for the “real world” after college. Responsibility to show up on time, team work, the value of a dollar, how to manage their money, how to act around higher ranking people, etc. Obviously some of these can vary depending on job.</p>
<p>When I turned 14 I got a job working at a mom and pop grocery store. I stocked shelves and cleaned to start. Over the years I started making sandwiches in the deli, receiving orders from vendors, placing orders with vendors, and doing inventory. It was nice to gain more responsibilities… just like “adult” jobs. </p>
<p>At college I worked at our IT help desk freshman-junior years.</p>
<p>I worked at an amusement park the summer after my freshman year. I’ve never been in such great shape in my life. Walking up and down hills all day every day. They also paid an end of the year bonus which came just in time for Christmas. </p>
<p>Summer after sophomore year I decided to do something different and became a photographer. Didn’t get as many hours as I thought I would so I got a job waitressing also.</p>
<p>Summer after junior year I got an internship at the same amusement park I worked at after my freshman year. The fact that I had worked there before really helped as I had a bit of a gist for how things worked. That internship was awesome. It was my first time in a job where I spent lots of time with numbers and trend analysis… and I loved it. It was also my first experiences in a supervisory position. </p>
<p>Senior year I got a job working for a small company as the office manager and I pretty much ran everything. I did all their billing, accounting, shipping, receiving, inventory, ordering from suppliers, follow up calls, even made a sales call and a few deliveries here and there. </p>
<p>When I interviewed for my first job out of college they were amazed by my 8 years experience in random positions and all of those jobs have helped me get positions I’ve had there over the past few years as well.</p>
<p>My kids have worked as nursery summer program counselors, beach pass checkers for town beach, retail, unpaid internship in their field, paid summer stipend internship in their field in both U.S and in Europe, one spent a summer in city where she went to school and worked part-time in college career center and so on.</p>
<p>Through college, my kids always took classes, and worked or had internships. They usually got a bit of volunteer work done too.</p>
<p>I live in an area with many upper middle class families. I’ve seen a few young people make it all the way through college and into grad school without EVER having a real job. But plenty of “enriching” trips to Europe. I think it’s tantamount to child abuse to not insist that your kid flip burgers or herd 6 year olds at day camp for a few summers. Honestly, we’ve all pointed out the millions of critically important life skills to be learned from menial jobs. The privileged kids who miss out on these lessons are handicapped in a way.</p>
<p>For college students, the key is to start the search as early as possible. My son got his 2012 summer internship locked down in October, which is pretty early… but the year before that he worked January college job fairs and got an internship offer by March. His friends who waited until April to start looking were too late to find anything. That seems to be true of most summer jobs, not just internships.</p>
<p>Year before college: I will be recovering from semi-major surgery… I NEED to get my license but I’m scared so we’ll see…
Before sophomore year of college: Getting license or a first part-time job…
Then: internships/jobs/etc…</p>
<p>It’s just driving that hurts.</p>
<p>S1, now a college freshman, worked in university labs during the last 3 summers. The first 2 summers were outreach programs that he applied to and last summer he was asked back by lab head w/out having to fill an application again. For this upcoming summer he applied to 3 formal STEM programs (neuroscience related) and emailed 10 profs at his school whose labs interested him (did this over Xmas break). He thought it was going to be very competitive to get a lab position at his university but of the 10 profs he contacted, 7 responded, interviewed him and offered a summer job w/ opportunity to continue during the next academic year. I’m not sure that many freshman consider doing this. Their own school labs are such a great resource. I did this when I was in college but in the humanities – researched Renaissance dowries w/ a history prof.</p>
<p>S heard from one of the formal programs this week, a howard hughes medical investigator program, and was accepted. Is supposed to hear from the other two by next week. Will have to make a decision very soon.</p>
<p>Younger S, a high school sophomore, has applied to a few creative writing programs and will hopefully also volunteer and get a job at an ice cream or yogurt shop, or possibly a cafe. Fingers crossed.</p>
<p>angelmichellex, my S didn’t get his license until a few days before he left for college! Good luck!</p>
<p>Renaissance Faire character actors (for pay). Good training in Elizabethan dialect, stage combat, crowd management. </p>
<p>Other paid gigs: sold knives, waited tables at Friendly’s.</p>
<p>Unpaid: home healthcare/all cooking for parent after surgery, wrote/directed an independent film with cast/crew of 20, took small roles in community theater productions</p>
<p>Family: roadtrip and week-long stay at 2 sets of grandparents, far away</p>
<p>umdclass,
“If you don’t mind me asking, what part of the country do you live in? We live in the Washington…”
-We live very close to Detroit, and historically have always been much worse economically than Detroit and still are with many of people from our city driving to Detroit for jobs on a daily basis. It has been bad for the past 30 years and going down…Washington has one of the lowest unemployment rates on the other hand because of rapid growth of government…</p>
<p>My kids didn’t work in high school. They went to various summer programs - paid and free. We also did a lot of travelling in the summer. They rarely sat at home with nothing to do.</p>
<p>While in college, D1 worked every summer. She was lucky that she found a job which allowed her to work from her with very flexible hours. She kept that job for 3 summers, and it looked great on her resume. She also had an on campus job that she had for 4 years. </p>
<p>I think it is very important for students to have work experience, whether it is flipping burgers or programming. Employers are very reluctant to hire new grads without any work experience. There are so many of them, why take a chance on someone who doesn’t have any track record yet in showing up on time.</p>
<p>Discussion of summer jobs came up recently with a group of friends I’ve known most of my life. One couple has children who have never worked until this summer ( college soph). The husband once stated that he felt his children didn’t need the $ and they would be taking a job away from some kid that really needed one. IMO, this was an excuse for his kids not working or even trying to seek summer employment which I know is not easy to find these days.
However, what I admire most about this man and his wife is that during high school & college they were two of the hardest working people I knew - in fact, they met on a summer job. They have raised decent, respectful kids who are good students and involved in their schools, however, it seems odd that the values I think helped shape the parents into the people they are today are not being handed down to their kids.</p>
<p>Do not underestimate the fact that some kids worked so hard on their academics and choose their college so smartly that they “earned” their free tuitions because of Merit awards. Somehow it rarely comes up, although this type of “earning tuition” is the hardest job of them all and paid the best. The “haburger flipping” are pocket pennies in comparison not mentionning that it is much easier to flip hamburgers than sweat over homework night after night year after year. In addition, these top caliber students have incredible job and other opportunites at their colleges, that are not open for general student body. They “earned” them also, yes, they worke hard to have chances to work even harder but at the same time to build up their character and other credentials to bring them to the next step in their jorney in life.
…and again, D. has applied one summer to about 30+ positions like “flipping burgers” with no peep getting back to her. She wasted her time, while working very hard in school was never waste of time, not in HS, not in college…but at college she had incredible opportunities and she took advantage of most of them, including the best job on campus.</p>
<p>Miami–I agree. Our D will most likely get pretty close to a free ride as a result of being a recruited athlete and merit awards. She has a summer job but she will also have another 'job" refining her athletic skills. During the school year we do not expect them to work because they just don’t have time and we don’t want them to take away study time for a part time job. I do think that it does not look good on job applications out of college to never have had consistent employment through at least college and really as far back as high school. Like other’s have said, having those summer jobs on your resume can give you the leg up you need to get that first job.</p>