SAT Instructor vs. Research

truazn8948532 · 06-04-2007, 10:32 PM

Hi~

Looking to go into Finance/Law school after college. I've been offered a summer (and possibly longer) SAT Instructor job at a SAT Prep place ($20/hour) and the director is a Columbia UNiversity SIPA grad. On the other hand, non-paid research internship at Columbia UNiversity Biotissue Engineering laboratory. Which one should I commit to?

mattistotle · 06-04-2007, 10:55 PM

instructor...you make money and show leadership/speaking skills...intern isn't related to your career at all.

someone29 · 06-07-2007, 11:03 AM

research at columbia is much better...but why the heck would you apply if you're looking to go into finance/law schools?

dearsiryes · 06-07-2007, 11:34 AM

Why can't you do both? I work for The Princeton Review (grade essays, mostly), do research on the weekends at Columbia and intern for 13 hours/day during the week.

mattistotle · 06-07-2007, 06:07 PM

damn, just doing 70 hours a week is raping me

dearsiryes · 06-07-2007, 10:32 PM

Don't think I'm not getting raped too, but the allure of the money is too overwhelming. I still have to run in the evenings for an hour each day. I'm running the Chase Corporate Challenge. My boss is giving me $500 is I place top 10 =) reason being that my placing would boost the company profile. Looks like a very probable feat, but I have to continue training like a mother, meaning no fun until after June 21 =(

kfc4u · 06-08-2007, 01:31 AM

take the SAT instructor job. it's paid, you may be able to network with your students, and a job is more professional-oriented than research, which is academic-oriented. if your SAT prep place also teaches LSAT and GMAT, then maybe they'll let you eventually cross-train in those.

dearsiryes · 06-08-2007, 10:00 AM

Are you kidding? Network with your students? These kids are high school juniors and seniors. Also, there's no chance of you teaching LSAT or GMAT until you've finished your senior year of college because you have to have taken the tests and such to gain certification. Besides that, what college junior wants a rising sophomore teaching them LSAT tips?

Also the fact that the research is not related to finance or law is immaterial. You will glean a fantastic recommendation from a probably well respected professor and will heighten your critical thinking and analytic skills, not to mention develop your research skills. When you apply for internships, this will be highly respected (or at least more so than SAT teaching).

Trust me, I was offered an internship at the Carnegie Foundation and a few emerging, VC backed tech firms and all looked at my research experience as a big plus. Research is not always easy. After you establish yourself, you have a lot of work to do, from lab-prep, data entry and analysis, text editing, specimen/subject organization etc. This work and the long hours involved show your commitment.

If the Prep place is TPR, then finish the certification process and GRADE ESSAYS AND PROCTOR. Essays are $1/essay and proctoring is $40-50/3 hours. Easy money! If you grade 20 essays a day (45 minutes) then you make 20 bucks. Then, if you do that for 7 days, that's $140 for just over 5 hours of work. Not bad? And you still get to keep your research job.

What year are you? I'm a rising sophomore, if that makes my advice any more credible. I'm also weekend researching at Columbia, so that's another link!

kfc4u · 06-08-2007, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Network with your students?

i guess it depends on personal philosophy. some people are okay with networking down (rather than just solely networking up). who knows if some of these students get into ivies and other top schools. if anything, you can at least serve as a mentor, but then again, not everyone is interested in becoming a mentor.

Quote:

Also, there's no chance of you teaching LSAT or GMAT until you've finished your senior year of college because you have to have taken the tests and such to gain certification. Besides that, what college junior wants a rising sophomore teaching them LSAT tips?

you can take these tests whenever you want. some SAT places (e.g. kaplan, i believe) are willing to cross-train you in another test, then have you take the actual in order to get certified. ultimately, if you're a rock star at the LSAT or GMAT (and you're a good teacher, of course), people older than you would be foolish to discriminate based on your age.

dearsiryes · 06-08-2007, 12:22 PM

Sure, sure. I just mention the about teaching older students because I'm planning on taking the coming LSAT test (my practice scores are between 174 and 176) and told TPR about it; they said that they would still want for me to wait until at least the second half of my junior year to start.

You can serve as a mentor, but in terms of trying to beef up a resume, it's tougher to convey the sense of mentoring through teaching a prep course.

Where's the OP? He needs to get a little more specific with his testing company and related info.