To the Editor:
I am certainly sympathetic toward Chris Kelly '96, who obviously had a rather boring spring working as a gopher for a law firm in New York City. I have also done my share of "grunt work" during both of my leave terms. However, the premise of his column ("Preview of Real World Disappoints," July 18) lamenting the lack of intellectual challenge in leave-term jobs was extremely naive.
Employers hire leave-term students primarily because they want to take up the slack for regular office workers who are on vacation or for when the office is particularly busy. Many private employers pay their summer students quite well. As a bonus, they may also hope to develop ties with top Ivy League graduates who can contribute to their personnel in the future. Employers do NOT hire students because they want to give them an interesting summer, and they do NOT hire students to engage them in challenging intellectual tasks. Most employers do not have the time or interest to supervise summer students more closely because they are too busy trying to run their business, law firm, or whatever.
It usually takes years of study for an advanced degree, experience in the field, and a good chunk of luck and ambition to rise to a position where you are truly challenged. The reason most employers assign summer students grunt work is that, quite frankly, as people who have essentially no experience or relevant training, we are not qualified to do much else. Furthermore, training a worker extensively for a job that often lasts for little more than two months doesn't make much sense, economically.
Most people spend their whole lives doing the sort of routine jobs which Chris found so intellectually deadening. As Dartmouth graduates, we will be in that position for only a small part of our lives: during our summers and perhaps for a few years after graduation. Doing that sort of work gives us the best sort of lesson: it teaches us why we are here, and why our education is so valuable. That sort of experience is irreplaceable; I would not trade my leave term and part time job experiences for anything.
