Being a lifeguard or “whatever” is much better than doing nothing. If you can do something relevant to what you would like to do as a future career, then that is certainly the best option, but if you cannot, then a job is usually better than no job.
I disagree as well.
Doing nothing shows nothing. And teaches you nothing.
It’s better to have some kind of job than to do nothing at all. Is a job at Burger King relevant to working in any academic field? Not really. But balancing a job alongside a school schedule shows dedication, good time management, and a willingness to support oneself.
Also, most students cannot find internships in their fields until junior or senior year of college. A lot of college students work minimum wage.
I think it’s a lot of personal experience. Yes, you can be a quality worker even if you didn’t follow through with low work and I don’t think it’s right to attack someone just because they didn’t work at a fast food place. If I were an employer, I’d understand that some people didn’t need to work their summers with Taco Bell jobs. If they’re the most qualified for the tasks I have, they get the job.
It doesn’t matter if they’re qualified or not if they don’t understand how a job works. Part of jobs is just showing up consistently. I want proof that you’ve been able to do that before I pour time and money into training you.
When I first started hiring, I hired people that seemed the best on paper. Great students, involved in clubs, etc. I didn’t pay attention to paid and unpaid work experience. You know what happened? A few of them just stopped showing up. They didn’t like doing sometimes tedious tasks (like data entry) and decided that they were just done. Of course, they didn’t bother to tell me that they were done.
OTOH, I’ve never had a student with a positive work/internship reference do that to us.
So yes, I’m biased. Just to further clarify, it does NOT have to be a minimum wage job or work at a fast food chain. I have worked since high school and never worked a minimum wage job nor have I ever worked in the food industry. I also grew up in a very hard hit part of Metro Detroit and know that paid jobs are extremely hard to come by, especially as a young person. Holding down an unpaid internship, a consistent babysitting job, a dogsitting job, etc proves to me that you’re not going to be a flake.
Right… Taco Bell was just an example.
But before someone chooses YOUR application out of the pile of them on his desk, he’s going to want some indication that he’s not wasting his time and money on you. (yes, he’ll have to pay someone to train you.)
High grades are great. But they’re an entirely different skill set than holding down a job.
“It’s more important to do something relevant to school. Internship/research paid or not. That helps you academically. Being a lifeguard or whatever at the kiddie pool doesn’t.”
How about those of us who are adults in the work world and who hire take this one, instead of college kids who think they know but really don’t?
“I worked 40 hours a week last summer, but it was far away. Gas money and taxes destroyed me, especially the gas. I probably made around 1,500 last year. I worked 3:00 pm to 11:00. I haven’t ranted once in this thread, but if you want me to I could go on and on about how I didn’t have a chance to do anything fun because of the schedule I was given.”
Did it ever occur to you that your parents may not have as much chance to “do anything fun” because presumably at least one of them is working 40 hours a week to pay for YOUR education and fun?
Most of us are parents. We are older and more experienced than you. And since this seems to matter to you, we’re also richer, since you don’t, by your own admission, have any income. That’s why we are qualified to give advice beyond what you were seeking.
It isn’t about whether you need money (yes, you do, for the reasons others have stated.) It’s that your parents are belatedly trying to instill a work ethic and build some character in you. It’s not too late to take them up on the opportunity. Jobs that suck not only give you spending money. They also build empathy and respect. By framing the question as, “do I need the money that comes from this job?” you demonstrate that you are missing the much more valuable lesson.
Get a better job like tutoring or similar spots…
If your parents are the reason all your college costs, to include unlimited meals, are provided for you, the very least you can do, is honor your parents’ request and get a job. If you do not understand this for 20 years, then so be it. To accept an education free and clear and refuse to earn any of your own money— not impressive! Sorry!
^^^^^^
There are people who want to work but can’t.
I realize you have jumped off this thread, but in the hopes that you are still reading it, I have one comment about something you said and one suggestion.
This might be hypertechnically correct, but IMO seriously misjudges what life at college is really like, unless you are a true social isolationist. We are fortunate enough to NOT live in a 3rd world country where mere survival is an achievement. Quite the opposite, as you more than most know all too well since you grew up in (or at least are currently in) a wealthy family. And because of that, college in the USA is about far more than academics. It is also about developing to a new level socially, on a much more adult level than high school usually is. And because we as a society usually have the resources, those interactions at some point involve money. The anecdotes are legion and wrenching about those students that come from poor backgrounds but attend prestigious schools on scholarship that feel completely isolated by their lack of money to, as someone else said on here, enjoy that spontaneous movie off campus or share a meal off campus. Never mind anything more luxurious that those examples. So think about your statement and your life in the context of the society we actually live in and how you want to interact with it. Your academic goals are laudable, but trust me when I say people pull off 3.9-4.0 GPAs quite nicely while balancing a good social life. In fact many would argue that with the proper discipline, those GPAs are easier to obtain when you don’t have that kind of self imposed stress all the time.
My suggestion: I would bet in the end that Mom and Dad aren’t going to let you do without at college, and as you say you have $1,000 of your own in the bank. That would probably cover a frugal freshman year assuming they do indeed pay for all the “necessities”. But I wonder if you could strike a deal with them wherein if you were to volunteer at a charity or other non-profit that is closer to you and has regular hours (presumably your two major objections to the last job), they would pay you the equivalent of minimum wage. Or whatever amount they thought was fair. After all, since you come from a wealthy family this might be considered a more socially (in the sense of better for society) healthy way to utilize your time and talents, and you still get all the other benefits of having a job (something for your resume, learning more about the world, self-discipline, etc.) Of course you have to treat it like a real job where you have to show up every day, no excuses like a late party the night before.
But in any case, perhaps that addresses all the issues involved in your question. The first part of my answer addresses your original question as to why you need money. Someday you will learn about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, if you haven’t already. Notice they are indeed called needs, not the hierarchy of wants. The second part addresses both the issues you had with last year and the various points that have been brought up by others as an outgrowth to your actual question. I hope that helps.
As a student who just finished a first year of college, worked full time at a minimum wage job in a fast food joint the previous summer, who is probably spoiled rotten by most standards, and managed to find a nice internship for the summer after freshman year, I just wanted to share a few observations, since not ALL of them correlate with what’s been said in this thread:
-
Working was not all that fun after the first couple of weeks, but in the end, I am happy I made the decision to do it. I experienced first hand how people in the service industry are treated, how rude some customers can be, etc. I also experienced how impossible it was to get a raise in these types of places, even differentiating between workers who were standout at what they did for years and got constant high high praise from customers
-
That being said, it was NOT a help in getting internships for me at all. I had other things to put on my resume that were more impressive-sounding (key work here is “sounding”) and relevant (volunteer based/unpaid experiences and jobs I worked during the school year) so it didn’t even go on. I have a hard time imagining how helpful being a food server can be in any of the internships you might get that are relevant to a college major. Other people in this thread mention getting better jobs or getting raises if you work hard enough (lol the latter was virtually impossible where I worked, not just based on my experience but others that worked there). If you can do the former, great! I was unable to, and lots of my other friends my age who wanted to find work even had trouble finding a minimum wage job, much less a cushier “better” one. Maybe if you can land a “better” job it’ll be a help with future job searches for non minimum wage jobs.
-
I do have a “cushy” internship now that pays higher than min wage and is relevant to what I want to do, but I attribute getting it to my past volunteer experiences, high GPA, passion for my field, and relentless tenacity (again, my summer fast food job never made it to my resume). I think I had applied to over 100 paid positions and went through 15 or so interviews while I got to hear some of my other friends brag about the positions they got through their parents’ connections or the unpaid internships their parents were willing to pay for (their transportation and housing, etc). A lot of places that pay their interns just don’t want freshman. You sound like you come from an affluent family, and my friends who are in that situation all got unpaid internships this summer. Random tip, but /on-campus/ summer research jobs/opportunities are easier to get. I had one of those earlier but had to give them up because of transferring.
-
Money during the school year wasn’t much of an issue for me. I’m sure not all parents are like this, but my parents actually WANTED to pay for my personal stuff/toiletries/textbooks and didn’t want me to work. They wanted me to focus on school, getting high grades, and having a social life (“networking”), and thought I would have a harder time doing all that while balancing my jobs. The way they saw it, me working in a low-paying job during the school year was not going to be productive in making money and my time was better spent networking and getting high grades and thus getting a high paying job post-college.
I ended up working multiple paid jobs during the school year anyway because I wanted to feel more independent, but I actually did end up sacrificing a lot socially in order to still do as well as I wanted academically. I have a lot of respect for people who are low-income that have to work long hours during the school year, but if you can afford to work fewer hours or even not have a job, I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with that. I have a friend who comes from a somewhat low income family that attends at a cheaper state school with no loans, generous financial aid and merit aid, who chose not to work during the school year because he knew it would affect his GPA. I think it really depends on the person.
- Funny thing about spending money for socializing. This might have been unique to me, but a lot of the people I befriended in college were low-income and usually wanted to find fun things to do on campus that wouldn’t cost money, which was fine by me, because there usually was plenty! I personally felt obligated to stick to my meal plan, even if the food wasn’t the best, because the plan was so pricey and I felt like I wanted to get my parents’ money’s worth by finishing as much of it as possible lol. I probably ate out a total of like 5 times the whole school year. Plus, I got to enjoy homemade food and eating out when I went home for thanksgiving break, winter break, spring break, etc. Look out for free food at social events at your school too.
tl;dr: situations and spending really do vary from person to person sometimes. really keep that in mind. I didn’t regret my last summer experience, but didn’t reap /all/ the benefits people in this thread mentioned. The shifts you mentioned sound incredibly inconvenient. Maybe you can negotiate with your parents on letting you work part-time instead? I really do think at least some work during the summer can have benefits. Having extra money during the school year is definitely a convenience, but a lot of people I met found ways to get around spending so much. Also, I don’t think it provided direct career benefits for me at least.
This is a good point but I had a job lol so I’ve actually worked before. Construction to be specific so yea. That’s real back breaking work.
You know, in college, there are some jobs where your responsibility would be mainly to sit down and do nothing for most of the time. Yes, they are competitive, but not even trying to get these kind of jobs is dumb-- you would get paid to do your homework.
Post #56, one of my kids who did not have work study, but somehow got a job at USC law school, and it was just like easy work, it’s like getting paid to play.
I don’t know why all these aversion to work. When I was at this age, I jumped for joy to get paid, even vacuuming in an office was fun and I never like to vacuum that much. My husband will attest to that. Plus I came from a well to do background in my old country with chauffeur, maid, cook and all the helping for household work.
I own two of my own businesses (both online) and I am literally HITTING THE PAVEMENT to ensure that I have enough money so I can survive on my own. I am advertising like crazy and trying to get the word out so that more people will become interested in my business (one is for graphic design and the other I make t-shirts, hoodies, hair bows, etc.) I am going to be a freshman this fall and I have the meal plan and such but I know that I’ll need to do something more than studying most likely, and I need money for extra essentials. (Like shampoo, conditioner, soap, tampons, whatever I need.) I want to make sure that if something bad happens, I’m sitting pretty and I can handle it. Also, both my parents are retired and I absolutely DO NOT want to take anything from their retirement. They’ve raised me to handle myself and I don’t want to burden them at all with anything related to college. Of course, it’s always a good idea to focus on academics and I’m doing that too, but I think that it’s always a good idea to gain a little work ethic and a resume builder as well.
I gotta admit my mouth dropped open at the fact that that question was even asked.
The most valuable thing you get is EXPERIENCE, and that is invaluable. In high school, I didn’t necessarily NEED to get a job because I knew my parents weren’t going to leave me high and dry in college. That didn’t mean I was going to not get a job. You learn responsibility, you learn about working in a professional environment, you gain experience and work ethics, AND build your resume, all the while getting some extra cash.
I don’t think it’s necessary to devote all your non school hours to working a job; academics should definitely still be a priority. I know my mom was constantly worried that my job would affect my time for homework, even though I was working pretty short hours as a tutor. Still, putting yourself out there into the real world is so important, and I’m really glad I worked during high school. Also, it just feels great to be able to pay stuff for yourself.
I’m starting college this coming fall, and I’m still planning on getting a job, even though I’ve been awarded a full ride scholarship, though admittedly I’m aiming for a job that’s more related to my field of interest. You’re going to be working for the rest of your life, and there’s no better time than now to get some experience and money so that you’ll be better off when your parental safety net expires.