To the Editor:
As recruiting interns with Career Services, we would like to respond to John Strayer's column regarding the "real world" [Feb. 27]. Since his is not the only complaint we have heard regarding the deadline policies of the recruiting program, we feel that some explanation is in order.
The sole purpose of the Career Services office is to provide students with advice concerning their futures and to help them achieve their goals through methods such as the recruiting program. Without exception, we have found that the staff is committed to helping students in any way possible.
Specifically within the recruiting program, we spend ten hours a day trying to accommodate the scheduling needs of students, and this process requires that we set certain deadlines that must be met. These deadlines have little to do with making the process easy for us. Rather, we are forced to cater to the recruiting companies as "customers" who require full schedules and advance information in order to continue to consider Dartmouth as a prime location for their recruiting efforts. Without a doubt, our principal motivation is to help our fellow students, but to do this we must work with the recruiters to make this process productive for them as well.
What we know about the "real world" is that in it you have to be responsible, and that this often means that there are certain obligations that must be fulfilled. For example, we suspect that Mr. Strayer had to complete his editorial in time for it to be printed, and that a few years ago he was eager to send in his Dartmouth application in time for it to be considered. Despite this reality, we make every effort to extend deadlines and bend rules with the best interests of students in mind. However, even if you brought in enough cash for a Lexus, there's only so much we can do.
