Will it look bad to adcoms to have "normal" summer job?

[Buttermellow]

Is it bad to just just have a normal job over the summer, while volunteering too? Say waitressing, or working at summer camp. It is difficult to find a good, healthcare-related job for only ~3 months. Nobody wants to hire you for that amount of time, and most internships are for business, accounting, etc. majors.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[alwaysaangel]

Please get a normal job. Normal job is normal, responsible, mature and if medicine doesn't work out (not saying it won't for you but for many it doesn't) at least then you will have a useful job history.

People who do nothing but volunteer and study scare me.

 

[blehm98]

yes any premed who isn't doing full time research over every summer is automatically put into the second-string pile of apps
please be reasonable, demonstrating that you are capable of holding a job and doing something more productive with your time than padding your resume can in no way hurt your app in any circumstance

 

[northpenn]

it amazes me how many people who are in medical school have never had a "normal job". Most of them have spent their summers since middle school doing "summer enrichment" programs.

 

[Naquadria]

I worked normal jobs throughout college. No worries lots of us don't have the luxury of only doing application padding type things. And summer camp shows great leadership so you can aways play that up.

 

[Buttermellow]

Thanks for helping me keep it real SDNers... the pre-meds at my school make me anxious.

 

[Torr]

There's nothing like getting outside of the medical/science field for a little while. It's only 3 months. I worked as a cashier for like 6 months . After working in a lab forever it was a good change and made me realize I was starting to forget how to just talk to people about nothing (don't know if that makes sense).

 

[bucks2010]

LOL at the endless string of "summer enrichment" programs. Don't be one of those guys. Get a normal job and have some fun on the side. Job = responsibility = a good thing on a med school application.

 

[Beets]

Adcoms like it when people have seen the "real world" and can deal with all different kinds of people. Being cooped up in a lab all of the time doesn't necessarily display that you've got that trait.

One of my interviewers definitely seemed interested in the fact that for a year before college, I worked as an office employee at an auto shop.

It's all about having good, interesting stuff to talk about. (Like your insane boss. But not really.)

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

Yeah if you want to you can try to land a paid research position somewhere (you know one of those REU or NSF programs).

If not, you got to get paid man, all those secondary fees really pile up later. If you want to volunteer during the summer, its definitely not a bad thing to do but don't do it INSTEAD of getting a job.