I watched a segment on the Today Show about how many teenagers and young twenty-somethings are choosing coursework over summer jobs. They believe taking on additional classes will better prepare them for their future careers and feel it is more productive than taking on a menial restaurant, service or retail job.
Though it is great they are not spending their summer breaks loafing around and doing nothing, I am not convinced they are actually learning more from books than a traditional summer job might be able to teach them. I spent my highschool and college summers working at a marina. I cleaned bathrooms, scrubbed boats, sorted bait, arranged rentals and managed a small convenience store. The job had nothing to do with my planned career path. What I learned over those summers was invaluable, however. Books and classes don’t offer an opportunity to learn team strategies, patience, flexibility with job functions and people skills.
As a professional recruiter, I often encountered new grads with excellent grades and zippo preparedness for how to succeed in the real work world. Because they are getting their feet wet in the working world with professional level jobs, the performance expectations are higher and the allowed learning curves are shorter. Employers are more forgiving of a $7/hr employee who needs to hone his/her basic work skills than they are of the $20+/hr employee who is struggling with being a reliable team player who can problem solve an effectively deal with a variety of personalities.
