3 Reasons Your Teen Should Have a Menial Summer Job
A lot has changed since we were kids, but what’s one thing that hasn’t? The importance of a low-paying, low-prestige SUMMER JOB.
You’ve probably heard rumors about kids landing impressive sounding internships and office jobs. Here’s the secret: a basic, minimum wage job (think: lifeguard, retail clerk, dishwasher, kids’ camp counselor, grocery store bagger) can be as -or even more - valuable.
Here are three good reasons that your ambitious, straight-A student should consider an old school teenage summer job:
1. Adulting
A summer job may be a teen’s first foray into the world of adulting. Even the most basic job requires punctuality, rule-following, positive attitude and reliability. A teen earning money suddenly has to make financial management decisions, even if they only involve very small amounts of money.
Many parents want their teens to spend summers in intensive academic programs, studying for SATs or otherwise getting ahead for the upcoming school year. These are great choices too. But for a kid who will soon be leaving for college, there’s huge value to developing basic adulting skills that are otherwise hard to hone inside the home or at high school.
2. Learning to work for someone else
A summer job is a great opportunity to learn to work for someone else. Even, and maybe especially, if the person is a jerk. Sometimes, if teens are lucky, they work for reasonable, appreciative and respectable adults. Other times, they work for irrational, unreasonable and frustrating people. These personality types exist in every work environment.
Learning to deal calmly and appropriately with different types of personalities is an absolutely essential life skill. This is a muscle that will serve a teen well with teachers and eventually roommates and professors in college.
3. Developing better communication skills and public comportment
Communication is another important life skill that is tested and developed in a lot of menial summer jobs. T-shirt folders at The Gap (is that still a job?!) engage with customers. Camp counselors talk to parents. Even grocery store baggers are expected to smile, make eye contact and ask “paper or plastic?” To do all of these jobs well, teens have to learn to be better at engaging and communicating with all kinds of people.
We’re cheating on the rule of three, but here’s a fourth reason: teens need to learn to take constructive or even critical feedback.
Taking criticism, internalizing it and improving conduct are all very important to success in high school, college and the workplace. Yet, few people do it well. It’s a great thing for a teen to be criticized - or even fired - in a very low stakes role where the failure is “soft”.
HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO COLLEGE ADMISSIONS?
There’s no one right way to spend a summer vacation, but there’s a lot to be said for an old-fashioned minimum wage job. Getting out of bed on time, wearing a uniform and treating bosses and customers with respect and positivity are very good training for life in college and beyond.
College admissions officers are also less likely to see parent fingerprints on a job at the Pita Pit than on a fancy sounding office internship. Working full-time at McDonald’s for a summer probably won’t get you into Harvard on its own, but it will say something about your work ethic, ability to function in a challenging environment and ability to follow rules. Believe it or not, these are important skills these days, which is why that job at McDonald’s looks great on a college application.
In a world where former deans at Stanford lament the lack of life preparedness in their students, having a little life experience is a VERY good thing.