Summer jobs may not get your foot in the door, but they can still be helpful

Summer jobs are just around the corner and for a lot of us university students, that also means the troubling time of making decisions about what jobs we will be doing is upon us. 

I know from personal experience that summer jobs were always seen as a way to get integrated into the corporate world that you might be involved in one day. But I have been recently thinking about whether or not our summer jobs are really as important as everyone has made them seem to be.

I know that my summer jobs have always helped me in some form of my life, from serving has helped me to develop multi-tasking skills to being a data entry clerk having made me better at completing large tasks in a small amount of time. But have either of these jobs really helped me get into the industry I want to get into?

As a communications student I know that my job in the future could be a plethora of different things – and having a job within the field could be helpful. But it might not be, since it’s such a huge industry. 

In university, I think we need to learn how to save money and work while also being able to have a flourishing social life – and I don’t really think your job matters in the long run. 

I know people who worked as servers for the summer and saved up $7000 in tips along side whatever server wage they were being paid, while I worked a nine to five where I made just around $4000. 

Also, I have worked at huge companies for one year and not been rehired, so getting my foot in the industry doors has not helped me to maintain jobs. 

My strongest advice to give to first years who are looking for new jobs within their industry is to take it one step at a time. If you are making money doing something that you are good at then you should continue to do that, and that way you do not have to work during the school year if you do not want to. 

People put pressure on you to work in a job that might not help you in the future, and that is just something that we all have to deal with. But we also need to remember that people learn different skills from each job, and that is the most important thing.