<p>blankmind - oy vey, indeed! :)</p>
<p>galoisien, me thinks the reason your friend got a job at MedImmune is because someone taught her how to *network<a href=“this%20means%20approaching%20the%20right%20person%20instead%20of%20carpet%20bombing%20with%20resumes”>/I</a>. It is how most people in biotech get their jobs.</p>
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<p>That will require some capital.</p>
<p>Hopefully I’ll have enough by the end of the summer.</p>
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<p>LOL I think you parents doubt my generation’s resourcefulness.</p>
<p>What happened to those folks who would tell my generation off about how they would walk ten miles to school daily, rain, snow or shine and our generation had it lucky …</p>
<p>And I seriously don’t know why you adults are so car-minded. (I’d also be lifeguarding, cutting grass, gardening, doing landscaping work, etc. for the City of Charlottesville if the city didn’t require a driver’s licence?!! wth.) If I didn’t know better I would say it was a conspiracy to keep the lower class out of certain positions.</p>
<p>galoisen, what is the nature of your current two part time jobs? If you were so busy with exams, how did you secure these? And you are prepared to quit them already? </p>
<p>This is very late to be looking for a summer job. </p>
<p>I already knew you were living in your college town in VA and not at home in ME. </p>
<p>My kids have worked every summer and not in their home state during college years. </p>
<p>You mention your friend’s mom is well connected. My kids got NO jobs through us whatsoever. This summer, one of my kids is working in NYC and the other is working in France. Both are in their respective fields. Both got the jobs on their own. One contacted the person who is employing her and it was not a specific job opening but she asked about working for him. My other kid was offered her job and didn’t apply for it. Both are making money and supporting themselves. Both are risk takers. My D who is working overseas is into adventure and this is the third job she has secured out of the country in fact. She went where she knows nobody. It took a lot of drive to make this happen and a lot of paperwork to make it all come together too. Believe me, her life is very busy 18 hours per day seven days per week but she went after it and you could have too. Perhaps you can still nab an internship or job in your field for summer but in my view, this is very late for that.</p>
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There is healthy competition and there is…not. There is winning honestly and honorably and there are ways to accomplish a win at any price.</p>
<p>galoisen, my kids’ summer jobs in their field have never required a car. They both have a license and a car but do not have it where they have worked for the summers out of state or even out of the country.</p>
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<p>Well it’s actually because her mother knew this other friend at MedImmune, who got the insider info, and she applied online. In contrast, my mother works in a unionised position almost a thousand miles away. It wasn’t even meant for her year (it was second years up only), and she applied as a first year.</p>
<p>I don’t carpet bomb with resumes. I specially craft all my letters and adapt my resume to each position. However, I don’t have leads or contacts unlike my dear friend – I have to look for them on my own.</p>
<p>And because she went to the Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology, and at TJ you do all sorts of cool projects and have all sorts of cool tech labs and it was ranked the #1 (public?) high school in the country and I went to a blue collar high school.</p>
<p>Life has given me an inferior set of cards. I’m not complaining. I just have to even the playing field through other ways.</p>
<p>I find it odd to be competing with your friend for who gets the better summer job or makes the most money. My kids compete with their own selves and their own high standards and goals.</p>
<p>Also, if you want to work in your field during the summers as a college student, sometimes that may not always mean the best paying job but rather the best experience and your resume will benefit. If you also need money, either don’t work in your field or else supplement a low paying internship with a side PT job.</p>
<p>Well yes. I will take anything to increase my hours and boost my resume. Some I am just looking for the money; some I am just looking for the experience. </p>
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<p>Well she is a very good friend. She is also my ex-girlfriend. Let’s say I want to prove to her that I’m worth it and I want to woo her back at the end of the summer by demonstrating how much we are made for each other. She’s a very high-achieving person. Maybe it will take years. I mean, we still have very good chemistry, just that some things didn’t work out. And I want to be remotely near her level, so of course I have to compete with her.</p>
<p>galoisen, I’m not buying your excuses. My kids went to an unknown rural public high school in Vermont. Their summer jobs have never been in our home state. None have been through connections of ours. Indeed, like you, they sought jobs on their own. They have succeeded every single time and have worked in their fields every summer. This is done by countless students in your situation.</p>
<p>soozie, the car may not be needed, but if the job description says “valid driver’s license”, you’d better have one. Believe me or not, all lifeguarding jobs in my state that D looked at all required a valid driver’s license! What and who would a lifeguard chauffeur around? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>galoisien - this is what networking is all about. Your friend talked to someone at the company, that person gave her another contact name, she talked to that person, then the second person told the HR, “If you get a resume from this young lady, please forward it to me” and then she got the interview and the job.</p>
<p>I know, I started four months late. This is probably a consequence of it. I thought I would be working in my home state, but I decided to clinch it.</p>
<p>Soozie, I don’t know why you think I am being lazy, a bum, or not proactively searching my best. That’s what I’m doing. I don’t intend to hide my college experience from all future employers I am wooing, in fact, I only thought of doing that to a small minority. </p>
<p>So I’m doing my searching, I have a very wide-ranging action plan, I already have some jobs, I just want more hours. So please stop lecturing me.</p>
<p>“Most productive” to me means a combination of good income and experience, so I’ll take some jobs that pay but don’t give me experience, and vice versa. That’s my plan.</p>
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<p>I didn’t have time to woo biotech positions in April. One was something I was already working at, and the other I found through my own networking skills (yes, I have them). </p>
<p>They’re reasonably flexible and I’m looking for additional hours on top of those jobs.</p>
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<p>I’m guessing they went to school in a big city?</p>
<p>I wish Charlottesville were a bit bigger. Farmland and corn fields start around 6 miles north of Grounds…whooo! Albemarle.</p>
<p>So I don’t have a professional well-paying job. Can ypi please stop lecturing me on that? I can’t do anything about it anymore. (Well not until summer ends.) I will have to do with a combination of two types of jobs, jobs for the money, and volunteering/jobs for the experience. I hope to at least increase my hours to 60 hours / wk.</p>
<p>galoisen, I did not say you were a lazy bum. You mentioned you did not have time to job search for a summer job in April due to exams and such. I am saying that many kids, including my own, who were equally or if not more busy, did just that. I know you are actively looking NOW and never said you were not. It is just that it is very late now to secure a summer job as you’d only have like two months to offer them (if you don’t lie). My kids’ summer jobs are already in progress. </p>
<p>You did not really tell the nature of your current jobs for some reason but that’s your perogative. </p>
<p>As far as where my kids went to college. My oldest kid went to Brown. None of her summer jobs were in Providence, however. She has worked in three different parts of France for three summers and one summer in NYC. She is from VT. My younger kid went to NYU and worked one summer in CT and three summers in NYC. The summer job in CT, she had her car with her but it was not required and many others who worked with her did not have a car. </p>
<p>If you are in an area where public transportation and walking limits the job search, then you need to have a license and be able to drive. If my kids chose to work here in VT, they do drive and they got their licenses at age 16. Here, one would have to drive to get to work. We also have cornfields. :D</p>
<p>I don’t have the capital yet to get myself learning to drive. My single working mother never had the time to teach me – unless your kids had no father too?</p>
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<p>Well I took almost 50% more credit hours than most people, and it was a miracle getting my Dean to approve my courseload (it was all-science). I have accumulated over 81 credits over two semesters…but I imagine a lot of kids do that.</p>
<p>(I still lost the credit hours competition this year to my friend though – I believe she has 40 + 20 + 22 = 82 credits over one year. DARN.)</p>
<p>And I’m looking for summer employment and some year-round employment. The thing is, I an committed to pulling a 4.0 for next year: my friend has gotten 4.0’s for all her credits, mostly A+'s in fact, even on overload, so I don’t want to commit too much, just a reasonable amount. I don’t know if I should overload next year again either. Next semester I’ll probably just aim for 19 or 20 credits max. This is order to ensure a reasonable shot at going to the same grad school as her…</p>
<p>I did start searching in April but didn’t really start hardcore until the middle of May. My first worry was affordable housing, and I couldn’t secure stable housing until 2 weeks after Move-Out Day (I lived in a pretty sketchy arrangement during those 2 weeks).</p>
<p>I wish my fellow college students wouldn’t demand such high-end apartments, either, because it severely distorts the college housing market (pushing prices up).</p>
<p>oy vey…times 10…(for the miracle of it all)</p>
<p>galoisien, </p>
<p>I don’t doubt how busy you were. I don’t want to be in competition here. I can guarantee you that my kids’ courseload as well as commitments were booked solid from early AM until very late at night (both are in specialized programs) and on weekends. Their schedules and commitments are on an insane level. They still secured jobs. </p>
<p>(example, D1 is an architecture grad student at MIT…just ask me about her insane schedule sometime…and what she put in to also get a job in her field, including all the extra things required to work overseas in terms of housing and a work visa and funding and all)</p>
<p>As far as learning to drive…it is true that my kids did not have a single parent. I am the one who taught both to drive. I’m a mom. In our state, they must put in 40 practice hours over the course of a year. I did that with them and they had very packed schedules. They also were required to take driver’s ed. One of my kids took it at school and one could not fit it in and had to do an intensive course in June before leaving for the summer at the time. All the kids i know here in our rural community have a license and many have single parents. Just saying.</p>
<p>Why don’t you stop making your life revolve around this girl? Credit hour competitions, summer “productiveness” competitions…just chill out and do what’s best for you. There will be other girls.</p>
<p>Also, please be safe in your relationships, galoisen. If you are trying to woo back this young lady to be your GF again, she should know if you are also dating an older gentleman you hooked up with on the internet. In some areas, risk taking is good and in some other areas, it is not.</p>
<p>I don’t think I can afford an intensive course … I already found a “friend” (through networking) willing to teach me for free and clock up my hours.</p>
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<p>I don’t think you understand. </p>
<p>(That’s what I once thought too.)</p>