Reply to For a rising college junior, lifeguarding is not a “real” summer job/internship, right?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My son goes to a cringingly expensive university (97K a year!) and for the 3rd year in a row, he will be a STEM camp mentor to middle schoolers on a military base. They like him, and always welcome him back.

He also, through dogged determination, got a valuable research opp at his university, with a professor he loves. It was a last minute thing, totally unexpected, after desperately searching for internships FOR MONTHS, and writing endless cover letters and cold-emailing many people.

He still has never had an internship in his life :-)

But this is better. It shows that an employer is willing to hire him again and again. And the research thing with a famous person in his field is the cherry on top, because it's exactly the specific thing he wants to do in his future career. He will be able to name-drop and talk about his project in future job interviews.

No, this is not a bad look at all, OP. You clearly are looking for any excuse to diminish your niece's accomplishments.

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+1  Just because something is labeled internship doesn't make it a great opportunity.  Your niece may not have been able to find a paying internship (lots of college kids can't, and don't have the family money to take an unpaid internship), or she may just like being out in the sunshine for one last year until she has to do a 9-5 job.

Either way, I envy the OP with her faux concern for her lifeguarding niece being such a big "problem" in her life that she had to ask strangers on DCUM about it.[/quote]

[b]I'm asking out of both slight concern and to better understand the landscape for our own children as they prepare for college[/b]. Thanks.[/quote]

If you are really concerned for your own kids make sure they start early with the career center, that they are comfortable talking to people for informational interviews, they are going to office hours and getting to know their professors, they are resilient in sending out resumes even if they have to apply to 50 to get one interview, they are willing to build a portfolio of work experience/learn new skills on their own if it isn’t part of their class work, and in the meanwhile they are willing to work the camp counselor, life guard, grocery store etc job during the summer and highlight the soft skills learned as part of those jobs on their resumes.

My kid is a rising college junior and is back at their high school summer job as a lead counselor for part of summer.  They are doing an unpaid internship in their field for another part.  The goal is to get a paid internship as a rising senior but to get there they need to already have experience via clubs, in campus job, and this unpaid internship and even with that they will need to network.[/quote]

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