Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every department at UVA makes upperclassmen get real summer internships. When juniors come back from summer break this fall, if someone said they were a lifeguard at their hometown pool all summer, every ambitious gunner would assume they were an utter moron.

How does a college make someone do something when the opportunities are not available?

They can't unless they are making jobs for every student, which absolutely isn't happening. My kid's friends at UVA definitely didn't have internships every summer.

What some colleges/majors can do is require capstone projects with industry partners. DS had that requirement for his major at VT and got a job offer from his sponsor. DD goes to a LAC and her major also requires this kind of project. I had the same at my college and that senior project was hugely influential in getting my first job so it was something I looked for in helping them in college search.

Anonymous wrote:My niece goes to an expensive and selective college. Her mother just me told she’s back home and lifeguarding again this summer, the same summer job she’s had since high school. Am I wrong that this is a bad look? At her college career fair this fall, the only work experience on her resume is going to the same summer job 3 or 4 summers in a row, which is a gig any high school swimmer can get when they're 15 or 16.

It's money and shows leadership. It's a serious job, lives are at stake.

Anonymous wrote:Every department at UVA makes upperclassmen get real summer internships. When juniors come back from summer break this fall, if someone said they were a lifeguard at their hometown pool all summer, every ambitious gunner would assume they were an utter moron.

Huh? My kid is a rising senior at UVA. I have never heard of this requirement.

Anonymous wrote:Every department at UVA makes upperclassmen get real summer internships. When juniors come back from summer break this fall, if someone said they were a lifeguard at their hometown pool all summer, every ambitious gunner would assume they were an utter moron.

How does a college make someone do something when the opportunities are not available?

Every department at UVA makes upperclassmen get real summer internships. When juniors come back from summer break this fall, if someone said they were a lifeguard at their hometown pool all summer, every ambitious gunner would assume they were an utter moron.

Anonymous wrote:Did she try to find an internship? Mine did and sent out tons of resumes and applications. He had one interview from all of that effort and no offer. He is back working for event services at his university.

His friends who graduated this year are either doing internships or looking for work.

OP’s niece did nothing. The niece sounds like a lazy kid and comments are conflating no effort with kids who networked, blasted out 100 resumes, coffee chats, career fairs, met with professors, and interviewed since last fall yet struck out. The most competitive internship interviews for the following summer are conducted from August-October, upwards of 10 months before internships even begin.

I guess people are suggesting when OP’s niece is asked, she ought to lie and claim she’s lifeguarding every summer after striking out on a real internship. That’s super ethical.

Did she try to find an internship? Mine did and sent out tons of resumes and applications. He had one interview from all of that effort and no offer. He is back working for event services at his university.

His friends who graduated this year are either doing internships or looking for work.

Anonymous wrote:

This is precisely why college kids need to be beefing up their resumes - now. Posters on here reminiscing about their fun summers at the pool or day camp 30 years ago, have no clue how important it is to use college summers strategically, in order to be competitive upon graduation. If lifeguarding is the only option- then by all means keep the job. But she should be doing something else in her prospective career field.

Anonymous wrote:

lol...a clickbait twitter account quoting a Guardian (UK) newspaper about jobs which the Guardian article doesn't even say what the click bait tweeter even says it does.

Anonymous wrote:She is in good company. HS age kids can’t get lifeguarding jobs at our MoCo neighborhood job because the college student lifeguards have taken the spots because they have experience and get hired over HS kids.

Yep! My 15 year old is a substitute and will be lucky to get a couple of shifts this summer due to the long long list of older returning lifeguards, pool operators, and managers who have come back to the pool year after year.

OP, come on. Do you read the news ever? The economy is struggling, new grads are suffering from unemployment and underemployment, and fewer companies are hiring summer interns. So yes, it has become more common for college kids to return to jobs they held previously rather than paid internships.

These threads all devolve into a College Confidential echo chamber. Because this isn’t an astute DC based forum anymore, it’s full of bored flyover state idiots.

Anonymous wrote:A job is a job, better than sitting and earning nothing. But lifeguarding is not a high skill job. numerous high schoolers do it since 15. The bar is low and the experience holds little value on resume for post college career. A rising senior should focus more on experiences that enhance their resume:taking courses, earning professional certificates, networking …

Ok but she's not a rising senior.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

+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.

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

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.

Anonymous wrote:A job is a job, better than sitting and earning nothing. But lifeguarding is not a high skill job. numerous high schoolers do it since 15. The bar is low and the experience holds little value on resume for post college career. A rising senior should focus more on experiences that enhance their resume:taking courses, earning professional certificates, networking …

+1