Let’s talk the reality of career resources

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD attends a top 10 university and is a math/cs double major. Recently I sat down and asked her about how she’s doing in her internship search, since we never talked about it during the year. She explains that she’s been doing pretty poorly so I tell her to go to the career center; to which, she complains is useless and isn’t helpful. When we toured this school, we were stoked for its career offerings in specific which were highlighted by our guides (both when we first visited and during admitted students week). Apparently the career treks are super competitive and only take 30 students, the advising often comes from students not career counselors (!!!) and students are doing the heavy lifting for everything! This is shocking to me, does anyone else’s college act like this?!

So you think since she is at a T10 someone is going to hold her hand through a job search? From this thread looks like the kids at UMD are out hustling her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD attends a top 10 university and is a math/cs double major. Recently I sat down and asked her about how she’s doing in her internship search, since we never talked about it during the year. She explains that she’s been doing pretty poorly so I tell her to go to the career center; to which, she complains is useless and isn’t helpful. When we toured this school, we were stoked for its career offerings in specific which were highlighted by our guides (both when we first visited and during admitted students week). Apparently the career treks are super competitive and only take 30 students, the advising often comes from students not career counselors (!!!) and students are doing the heavy lifting for everything! This is shocking to me, does anyone else’s college act like this?!

So you think since she is at a T10 someone is going to hold her hand through a job search? From this thread looks like the kids at UMD are out hustling her.

There’s quite a range between hand holding and 200 applications to get an internship that you’re denying

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is at Vanderbilt and reports that the career center people are entirely inaccessible. Who knows if they are any good? You cannot get an appointment, literally cannot. And the drop in hours that they have are very limited unlimited days and when you go to try and drop in, they are often not even there.

The parents group complains about this on the unofficial parents Facebook site. But if you go onto the official Vanderbilt parent site, there’s one or two cheerleaders who I think are on the payroll of the school and they gaslight you and tell you that you’re doing it wrong. That their current student had a wonderful experience and was bestowed all kinds of coveted, consulting or engineering internships just by popping in.

My kid is incredibly intrepid and what the gaslightlers arw saying is utter bullshit. He got internships on his own with zero assistance. That said, he’s seeing lots of darkened offices during drop by hours in the career center.

My son’s parents site has those cheerleader types too. They shut off any complaints. Bizarre.

+10, my least favorite parents are the ones who gaslight anyone clearly experiencing issues at the school. I don’t trust anyone who says their child was just handed an IB internship with “contacts” at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here. I did read the post. There are several sustainability-related recruiting firms and institutions who come on-campus to interview for summer internships.

Name…one? It still sounds like you’re still talking about sustainability finance, not the actual industry.

Tesla - Solar Panels and Systems. Two kids were hired apparently.

I think you’re totally missing my point, namely it’s not the Career Office’s responsibility to get our students jobs but rather provide them good counsel on how to do it — the process — and provide some resources. My DS applied to over 150 summer internships for summer of 2025 and got a LOT of rejection but ultimately got a handful of offers and accepted one. He’s a strong student and candidate in his field, but it’s 95% about the hustle and ambition and definitely NOT about the career office. Doing informational interviews with alums, talking to older students and professors at Brown, and talking to the Career Office informed his process. Have your kid look into an UTRA or REU perhaps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here. I did read the post. There are several sustainability-related recruiting firms and institutions who come on-campus to interview for summer internships.

Name…one? It still sounds like you’re still talking about sustainability finance, not the actual industry.

Tesla - Solar Panels and Systems. Two kids were hired apparently.

I think you’re totally missing my point, namely it’s not the Career Office’s responsibility to get our students jobs but rather provide them good counsel on how to do it — the process — and provide some resources. My DS applied to over 150 summer internships for summer of 2025 and got a LOT of rejection but ultimately got a handful of offers and accepted one. He’s a strong student and candidate in his field, but it’s 95% about the hustle and ambition and definitely NOT about the career office. Doing informational interviews with alums, talking to older students and professors at Brown, and talking to the Career Office informed his process. Have your kid look into an UTRA or REU perhaps.

Sounds like brown has pretty crap job resources then. Also Tesla and all of elons companies have terrible work place cultures.

[Anonymous]

What about career fairs? That's where everyone got the jobs in my day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern has a required course in applying for internships, co-ops, networking, interview skills, resume writing, etc.

I'm not sure why other schools don't do this.

Baylor has the same, at least for the business school. They also have large internship and career fairs starting sophomore year. My DD and her friends had no problem securing good internships. Like the PP, I don't understand why more schools don't provide this type of support.

[Anonymous]

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, et al, no one or no career office ever bestowed upon them an internship or job. They made it happen, themselves. I am not getting you. I can see you are genuinely upset. Respectfully, I just don’t understand your point of view and your expectations about a career office. I am glad, downright grateful, my DS went through this process and he’s better off for it in the long run.

[Anonymous]

most internships for this summer were filled in the fall (or earlier).

go to every career fair. talk to people. even if not looking yet, it is good practice. work on an elevator speech.

some career centers are good. many are not.

like in the real world, you have to get out there and find something yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, et al, no one or no career office ever bestowed upon them an internship or job. They made it happen, themselves. I am not getting you. I can see you are genuinely upset. Respectfully, I just don’t understand your point of view and your expectations about a career office. I am glad, downright grateful, my DS went through this process and he’s better off for it in the long run.

Gates was the son of a very prominent attorney (the Gates in the biglaw firm K&L Gates is his dad) and had a job as a page for the House of Representatives, which I'm sure his dad helped him get.

[Anonymous]

Target the smaller companies, they are less likely to have filled their internships at this point .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, et al, no one or no career office ever bestowed upon them an internship or job. They made it happen, themselves. I am not getting you. I can see you are genuinely upset. Respectfully, I just don’t understand your point of view and your expectations about a career office. I am glad, downright grateful, my DS went through this process and he’s better off for it in the long run.

Are we comparing the average Ivy grad to the most successful business man, and if so, why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:most internships for this summer were filled in the fall (or earlier).

go to every career fair. talk to people. even if not looking yet, it is good practice. work on an elevator speech.

some career centers are good. many are not.

like in the real world, you have to get out there and find something yourself.

This is not true. Only one industry hires this early, many are actively searching right now. Not everyone is into finance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, et al, no one or no career office ever bestowed upon them an internship or job. They made it happen, themselves. I am not getting you. I can see you are genuinely upset. Respectfully, I just don’t understand your point of view and your expectations about a career office. I am glad, downright grateful, my DS went through this process and he’s better off for it in the long run.

Your point of view is not in line with the career centers of most universities though. If everyone was an entrepreneur, there’d be no successful companies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:most internships for this summer were filled in the fall (or earlier).

go to every career fair. talk to people. even if not looking yet, it is good practice. work on an elevator speech.

some career centers are good. many are not.

like in the real world, you have to get out there and find something yourself.

This is not true. Only one industry hires this early, many are actively searching right now. Not everyone is into finance.

well, actually you are wrong about that. finance hires very early, that's true i guarantee you most big companies that attend career fairs which were held in august/september have mostly filled their intern spots.