I think this is where career focused students have an advantage. It’s easier to know what you need to do to build a resume if you know what your career goals are. I was glad that both of my kids had definite directions. For one it meant cooping, research, working with Women in Engineering, and being a counselor with Purdue’s STEP (Seminar for Top Engineering Prospects) program. She had a job offer the September before she graduate in May. For my second who wanted to be a Physical Therapist it meant approaching professors to be a teaching assistant (she did this for two classes), working with the Physical Therapy club and doing research with a Professor (she asked another professor about a summer job on campus and he knew a Professor doing research related to her field that was a paid research position). By the way she was a Dance major but that wasn’t her future goal. Luck? Maybe but she asked, was a top student, and did excellent work for the people she worked for. If she had just gone to class and done well none of this would have occurred and her application for a DPT program would have been far weaker.
Humanities doesn’t come with many direct career paths and as such I think it’s harder to put yourself in positions to market yourself. The skills are valuable but you need to have an idea of how you wish to use them to be able to develop networks.
STEP - that’s what my son attended at Purdue. Hated that we forced him to go. Came home - raving about the school, the food, the activities - all of it.
It’s no luck for your kids - they both took advantage of the resources they are given. Not all do. Well you can say it’s luck - manufactured luck - by them.
Back to OP - that’s what they need to do - not complain about their Ivy League career department but take advantage of the national leaders and fantastic opportunities that grace their campus, likely every day.
True. Easier if you know. But our S19 doesn’t know. We told him to just start with something he’s interested in. Try it. It’s only 12 weeks. If it’s not your thing then at least you gained some experience and hopefully a recommendation. Try something else for the following summer. This is why you start early - hopefully with something after freshman year. One has to be realistic. Those internships aren’t going to be glamorous.
I worked at a law firm after sophomore year. At a big insurance company after junior year. Took a risk analyst job after undergrad. Ended up spending most of my career in marketing using my analytical skills. Skills are transferable to all kinds of jobs.
oh man. my sophomore engineering son missed out on ALL of that last year being remote at his school.
I feel like he’s a year behind. he’s smart, well-liked, but it’s not in his wheelhouse to do this on his own and there wasnt much guidance last year. i appreciate you writing that, i’m going to share those ideas with him to get going now. (not at purdue). things will happen in time . . . but last year hurt him in these regards!
Everyone has to apply through the portal, but networking gets your resume/application reviewed by a human. I mentor kids at schools ranging from Ivies to regionals and the process is almost exactly the same for all of them to land a great job or an internship. It’s all about networking. My DD recently got a friend an interview with a top firm simply by passing the friend’s resume on to one of her contacts with a strong recommendation. The friend missed the portal application deadline and hadn’t networked at all.
FAANG SWEs for new college grads are 100k-150k/year. I have a few friends who also take advantage of the WFH policies of these companies and are moving to areas with a much lower cost of living than the SF Bay Area (although that’s where their employer is). Six figures gets you far in Salt Lake City or Missoula.
And if these 9-5 workers are the same people then they’ll get cut pretty quickly once the inevitable downturn comes. The people who succeed in FAANG jobs are responding to emails from 10pm until midnight because that’s the only time they have in their schedule to compose thoughtful answers.
You seem to have pretty unrealistic notions about jobs and careers.
I think it’s ok to want balance but one needs to be realistic. S19 isn’t interested in working 70-80 hour weeks so IB is out and he’s cool with that. I’m sure he knows he won’t likely just be working 8-5 M-F but ten hours seven days a week isn’t something he’s interested in and that’s ok! We know plenty of 20 somethings who put plenty of time in at work and still have most of each weekend to recharge.
I remember my son telling me in amusement about how his roommate came home at 7pm one evening last summer and asked if he wanted to go out. My son said “No, I have this project to finish for work tomorrow”.
His roommate literally couldn’t understand because he’d never had a job where you didn’t just clock in and out at the beginning and end of your designated shift times (retail, fast food, etc.).
So I guess your lack of understanding of how the real world works is not unique. But you are not giving any of us “old timers” the impression that we’d want to hire you.
That is totally fine. And in some instances it is definitely the case. But what doesn’t work is to expect that life/work balance but at the same pay levels. There are trade-offs. If people want tot log out at 5, that is fine but then I need to hire 1.5 times as many people. Which means they won’t be paid the same as if the same work was being done by one person. And you run the risk that someone will be willing to do all of that work.
The last 2 summers have been very difficult. He’s got plenty of time given he’s only a sophomore now. I thought tsbna44 had some very good, realistic advice/tips in an earlier post.
Thanks for distilling this down to simple accurate observations as to how things work in the real world. There are consequences to decisions, as well as competition, and risk.
Not every job applicant can be choosy and apply only to the most interesting jobs in a focused search. As an example, many PhD graduates would like to get tenure track faculty jobs, but many have to settle for adjunct piece work or post-doc jobs.
Perhaps that adds another layer of stress on students – failing to get a relevant job or internship in the first summer increases the chance of failing in future job searches, so it is a continuous high stakes process (every summer, must succeed at “winning” the competition for a relevant job or internship, which is almost always a reach for those not connected / “hooked”).
That sounds miserable to me. I’ve been doing software my whole career without having to do that, although I’ve known people who do. Yeah, occasionally we’ve got to do 12 hour days or work on a weekend, but not regularly. There’s got to be some middle ground between being a clock puncher and being tied to your job during all waking hours.
You do not need a “relevant” job. You need a job. Period full stop. It is hard to launch after college with no work experience. But it doesn’t need to be a fancy internship, have a great title, or have any wow factor at all. Just demonstrate that you know how to wake up every day, do work that’s valuable enough to generate a paycheck, and continue doing it for some period of time longer than two weeks…