My son is home from college and just started his summer job today. Made me wonder if any students or parents of same would like to share your summer jobs.
Eldest daughter, college junior, is staying at school this summer. She has 9 private piano students, and is working 20 hrs/week in some university office. She says during the interview they said, “I hope you don’t get bored easily.” She said, “No, I’m a reader” and they responded “Good.”
Son finished freshman year at college, and is working 40+ hrs/week at our local department of public works. The duties specifically listed on the job description included scraping dead animals up off the roads! He bought his first pair of steeltoes over the weekend.
Youngest daughter is graduateing from HS in a couple of weeks. Will be working Approx 15 hrs/week shelving books at the local library, and the same at DQ.
Heck, I just realized - with one kid working at a state school, and two for the village, all of my kids are sucking off the public teat just like their old man!
Son is 19. Been home for almost two weeks and he hasn’t found a job yet, partly due to his natural laziness and partly due to the economy, dispite his efforts . I’m hoping the lack of money will get his lazy ass moving faster soon. If only he could get a sweet public service job!
I’m in college, and advising a campaign for state legislature. Don’t think I’m getting paid, though. They’ve expressed extreme gratefulness, and if you get that much emotion it’s usually because you’re not getting anything else. However, they should be spending money on a voter database or some such soon, and that money could be given to me to buy it, with no effect on them but a bonus on my resume.
After much persistence, the McDonald’s with the perpetual “Hiring Smiles” sign out front has granted my daughter an interview. Surely they will hire her now?
I can’t believe the hoops she’s had to jump through to get a job flipping burgers. She put in an application online, then checked back in person about four times, then yesterday was permitted to take a “test” (What would you do if you saw a spill in the lobby but it wasn’t your job to clean it up?).
Back in the old days, when I was a youngster and we all wore onions on our belts because that was the style, I walked into a McDonald’s and got hired before I was done asking for the application.
21, finishing junior year of college this afternoon. My summer job from last year, which I adored and was well compensated for (in terms of finances and resume), kept me on the line this year with "Well, maybe we’ll have the money to bring you out here again. (They’re in Fargo, and were a little busy.) Just yesterday, when I had given up and lined up a few McJobs in town to avoid moving back into my parents’ house, I get a call from my boss (who I also adore) saying “Hey, maybe we do have the money. You still available?” Can’t complain about much if it does work out, but wow, late notice!
My oldest, who is almost 19 and just finishing up her freshman year in college, is working 3rd shift in an ice cream factory. Since she has almost a month of school left, she is a very tired girl but needs the money.
I’m also finishing up my junior year of college, and I’ll be staying on campus to do some sweet molecular biology research for pay, which I’ll be continuing next year for class credit.
For those interested, I’ll be working with c. elegans, a tiny nematode worm, knocking out a gene involved in neural development, watching them to see if they can still chase bacteria, and, in the process, learning a bunch of practical molecular biology skills.
I’m the happiest kid in the world now, especially considering that I spent the last two summers as a temp janitor in a high school and a grocery slave/apple orchard flunky. And considering that the unemployment rate in my hometown is up to 20%. :eek:
I’ll end up making barely enough to pay my next year’s tuition (after financial aid and scholarships), and I’ll come out relatively starving, but I’ll have useful skills, a head start on my honors thesis, and a fighting chance at grad school.
If I were the squee-ing type, I’d be doing so right now.
wunderkammer - My youngest is starting college majoring in Molecular and cellular bio next year. I’m sure she would find yous summer job fascinating. What college are you at? My best buddy sells RNA interference agents, and has a lot of college accounts in the midwest.
My parents were very big on the idea of making your own way and I got my first job when I was 15. I worked at a frozen custard parlor called Sheridan’s for a year and half. Then I worked at CVS for another 2 years or so. I also interned at the EPA for two summers, once after my senior year of high school and again the next summer after my freshman year. This summer, I was offered a job at EPA again but I also got into the SURF program.
Did I forget to mention that I spend my freshman year of college working at McDonalds? It wasn’t always great work but if you treat them right, they’ll treat you right. I had been working for less than a year and they had asked me to train to be a manager. They aren’t kidding when they say you can move up in McDonalds company. It is only a question of whether or not you want to.
I’m still trying to sort out my summer job, but I had an interview this morning for a job that I really want, even more than the one from last week that I really want! Both are in the aerospace industry and very much related to what I want to do, and why I went back to school.
I’m in this lab at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, and, as a matter of fact, I’m quite prepared to do some RNAi if we don’t get the transgenic worms we’re looking for.
Tell your daughter to get an early start on summer research if she possibly can, even if she doesn’t have an exact idea in mind. I spent my first two summers after college living at home and doing menial work because I didn’t know exactly what field I would enjoy, and because I had a lack of confidence and a bit of impostor syndrome. Seriously, nothing bad will come of simply asking her adviser or other professors if they have anything going on.
And, especially if she’s at a large school with more people competing for undergrad research, she should apply for lots of summer programs like NSF REUs. I’m kicking myself for not having done one of those for the last two summers.
Thanks for the Link. I believe my daughter is quite interested in hooking up with some research - at least that is what she says now. Whether she follows through is another story!
I’ll have to ask my buddy if he sells to Lawrence. I know he has several large accounts at UW-Madison. Lawrence is in Appleton, no?
My kid will be going to UofI - another place my buddy sells. I’m hoping he should be able to get her some ins relatively early in her career. He’s always telling me which profs have the most cutting edge stuff going on.
Have a niece who got biomed- and chem-eng degrees from Wash-U, and is now with Sigma Aldridge down in St. L. She now says she would have preferred to study more bio.
