Get a Summer Job!

Kids in college and those graduating this year have never had the challenge of finding a job in an economy even close to our current recession. I graduated college in 1983 and the job market was about as depressed as it is now. But this generation is woefully unprepared. I remember that I had to take around 7 different jobs and only one of them even paid anything and it was for a weekly paper, $25 an article.

So everytime I bark, "Get a job" to my 19 year old, I feel a bit like I am sending him out on an impossible mission. Or at least one that doesn't have great potential for success. One that he is certainly not prepared for. So we are looking at other alternatives. The goal is to do "something" that enriches his life experience and himself in some way shape or form. Like summer classes or volunteering for a few non-profits.

A friend of mine with a kid graduating told him to take advantage of this time, to look at it as an opportunity; travel, do something that you ordinarily wouldn't do but that will enhance your life experience.

What other options are there? How can we best calibrate our kids who grew up in a time of entitlement when the world has shifted so dramatically. Many of us with college age kids have struggled with this generation to begin with, so now maybe our life experience has some more relevance to our kids...but will they listen?