Duke bachelor’s (economics) & literally no work history

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Americorps. Maybe Peace Corps.

No experience means this would be precluded.

&pc is super-selective!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did they pay their living expenses in college? How do they pay their cell phone bill? Do they have a car?

Most affluent parents pay for everything though their kids do internships, research and volunteer gigs instead of random retail jobs.

An internship at Google pays way more than serving ice cream for the summer.

+1. I always side eye when people recommend dead-end jobs 10th graders can do or migrants who don’t speak English can do. Your adult kid has X amount of years of an $90,000 a year college education. Act like it. Don’t have them waste a summer learning nothing and making peanuts. There are interns at Amazon and other tech firms making $20,000 to $30,000 a summer.

And if a student is not selected for these $10k/month internships?

There are plenty of campus research assistant jobs. They don't pay $10k a month, but are far better than retail or something.
More importantly this is valuable time for the student to figure out what they enjoy doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did they pay their living expenses in college? How do they pay their cell phone bill? Do they have a car?

Most affluent parents pay for everything though their kids do internships, research and volunteer gigs instead of random retail jobs.

An internship at Google pays way more than serving ice cream for the summer.

+1. I always side eye when people recommend dead-end jobs 10th graders can do or migrants who don’t speak English can do. Your adult kid has X amount of years of an $90,000 a year college education. Act like it. Don’t have them waste a summer learning nothing and making peanuts. There are interns at Amazon and other tech firms making $20,000 to $30,000 a summer.

Those intenships are very competitive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did they pay their living expenses in college? How do they pay their cell phone bill? Do they have a car?

Most affluent parents pay for everything though their kids do internships, research and volunteer gigs instead of random retail jobs.

An internship at Google pays way more than serving ice cream for the summer.

+1. I always side eye when people recommend dead-end jobs 10th graders can do or migrants who don’t speak English can do. Your adult kid has X amount of years of an $90,000 a year college education. Act like it. Don’t have them waste a summer learning nothing and making peanuts. There are interns at Amazon and other tech firms making $20,000 to $30,000 a summer.

Those intenships are very competitive.

That's the problem.

There are two things an employer actually pays for:

1. Usually they pay you for work. That can be manual labor, or intellectual work, or something in between, but they pay you for your product. A college degree is no guarantee you will show up on time, produce the work even when it is boring or you don't feel like it, or any of that. Even a little real-world experience where the person shows up on time and works consistently will help. He can get that in any number of ways, but depending on a lot of things (including recruiting software settings and how he does in an interview), that first step might not be a paid one. Nobody is paying you for your degree, unless ...

2. Much more rarely, they pay you for influence -- generally for access to a family member, or as a favor so the family owes them. Sometimes this is the kind of position where the degree is enough, but that's because they aren't really paying you for the work.

Nobody is owes a job because of the degree they got. Sometimes heavy influence can get them a job, but barring either that or a job market where employers are having to go begging, he needs to show up somewhere and put out, and do it as a track record.

[Anonymous]

^^"Nobody is owed a job"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did they pay their living expenses in college? How do they pay their cell phone bill? Do they have a car?

Most affluent parents pay for everything though their kids do internships, research and volunteer gigs instead of random retail jobs.

An internship at Google pays way more than serving ice cream for the summer.

+1. I always side eye when people recommend dead-end jobs 10th graders can do or migrants who don’t speak English can do. Your adult kid has X amount of years of an $90,000 a year college education. Act like it. Don’t have them waste a summer learning nothing and making peanuts. There are interns at Amazon and other tech firms making $20,000 to $30,000 a summer.

And if a student is not selected for these $10k/month internships?

Find something that pays $5k month? Don’t settle for peanuts and a dead end low skill gig if you attend one of the most selective, prestgious and expensive colleges in the world. That is nuts! Use your brain and connections.

[Anonymous]

If they got into Duke, they probably made a resume when they applied to colleges. They should start with that and add any relevant info from Duke: their degree, their GPA if high enough, relevant "skills" from being in school (foreign language, computer skills, math skills, etc.)

It doesn't have to be perfect. The career center people can help them fix it up. Probably their first job will be someone on Duke's campus. That's fine. Lots of grads have crappy first jobs.