The Lowdown on Work…and Whether You Should Write About It
by Albert L.
In my first job in high school, my right thumb often pulsated with a rawness that came from my nemesis that was a single hole puncher. I believed I could efficiently brute force my way through one too many sheets that would somehow defy the laws of physics.
My loving cousin employed me as one of her sweatshop elves in her home business that sold handcrafted messages and charms. Though often monotonous, I learned a lot about the sheer amount of work that running and sustaining a business required. Work experiences offer a glimpse into the real world that just can’t be revealed within the confines of school bells.
So, does that mean students should go out and find a job to round out that applicant profile?
Not necessarily. We understand that students are already quite overwhelmed with their school work, extracurriculars, and responsibilities at home. If you’re privileged enough to not need to support yourself, and are still pursuing enriching activities, even if they’re unpaid, you’re still doing great.
School should be a priority. This is especially true during your junior year, as well as your fall semester of your senior year when you’re applying to schools. Some students underestimate the amount of work that applying takes and end up not putting in the sufficient time and energy to make their applications shine.
However, if you find yourself with an abundance of free time, or have an empty summer that hasn’t been utilized fully, choosing a work experience can be a great opportunity. If you can find paid work in the field that you want to work in, you’ve hit the motherlode. That will be unlikely as someone with little work experience. But even entry level jobs can also teach valuable skills and life lessons that can help narrow down what you eventually want to do later in life.
Take the hypothetical that you work as a barista. You might find that standing on your feet for hours at a time can be taxing, but maybe you enjoy having conversations with customers which shows you might want to enter a field that showcases your ability to communicate and develop relationships. Maybe your boss isn’t great at scheduling, but you can see how your superpower of time management that helps keep you on track at school might be applied on a managerial level.
Say you have a job, would you want to write about it for your college essay?
At IvyBoost, we give advice to our EssayNarwhal students to consider picking topics outside of their school experiences for their college essays. After all, the unifying trait for almost all college applicants is that they’re all students. Choosing to write about how you struggled with but ultimately persevered to get that A in a class, though important and shows your willingness to endure, isn’t really unique.
Work falls outside of school and can be a fruitful choice for your college essays if you focus on not the job, but what the job meant to you. If you’re just talking about your work duties, then that could be saved for your resume. You don’t want to lose your sense of agency and be defined by what other people demand from you without discussing the meaningfulness of the job.
If you frame the essay around a skill you have which allows you to excel, then you give a better picture of how those values and skills are transferable to you as a whole. One of my students who worked at a party supply store talked about how they helped a customer solve a problem with balloons that kept popping for a gender reveal party. As the customer was getting frustrated, the student stayed calm and used his knowledge of physics and tensile strength of different materials, and thought of using a different kind of balloon which ultimately worked.
Another student of mine wrote about how his boss only cared about the outcome instead of the process, training my student to fleece customers by skimping on ingredients while also talking poorly about the other employees in another language. After getting multiple raises, he’d realized he’d become complicit and promised he’d begin to make more of his decisions when he could and always honor the process. The essay became a thoughtful introspection about truth, ethics, and the corrupting nature of capitalism, all in the confines of a little ice cream shop job.
So if you have job, from a charm hole-puncher to an everyday barista, there’s a good chance there are some unique stories to mine from that could highlight your values in a unique way.
