Freshmen need not apply

Though I am fortunate enough to have this security, others are not so lucky. The internship hunt is frustrating in general, but particularly frustrating for freshmen. We’re totally undesirable. “Freshmen need not apply” might as well be posted on the TigerTracks website. One internship listed “Looking for: Doctoral Candidate, First Year, Junior, Masters Candidate, Senior, Sophomore,” in that order. This translates to, “Anyone of any age; in fact, we don’t really have a preference, but absolutely no freshmen.”

Many a freshman or former freshman can sympathize with thinking you’re on a roll at an interview — you’ve made a witty comment about the Matisse print in the waiting area, you’ve been utterly charming, and you might even have some useful skills and experiences to speak of. “Remind me, what year are you in school?” the employer asks. Your answer is met with pursed lips, a silent nod or a nonverbal grunt of some kind. You frown.

Some freshmen resort to other activities. Some take summer courses; others ship themselves off to Third World countries to dig holes. Still others fall back on their jobs from the past, which — as in my friends’ cases — include jobs in blueberry picking and battle reenactments. Except for the 18th century military costumes (the muttonchops mainly), these options really aren’t so terrible. In fact, many of these jobs pay better than internships.

Yes, freshmen are less experienced and perhaps less qualified than their upperclassman competitors. They lack years of schooling, which really are very valuable. The question is, how much does one year of school increase a student’s employability? For engineers, this difference could be great: Engineers only take “engineering” their sophomore year. However, this distinction doesn’t exist to nearly the same extent for A.B. students.

In a conversation with a former employer of mine, I asked what he looked for in interns. Without any hesitation, he said “organization and team skills.” If Princeton students didn’t have these skills coming out of freshman year, the odds are good that they wouldn’t have them after their sophomore year either. Furthermore, getting a job without work experience is a circular problem.

Though some freshmen have applied and struck internship gold, it seems that most of the freshmen with internships this summer got them through connections. I’ve heard of kids accompanying their parents to dinner parties expressly to establish these connections. Other kids relentlessly spam alumni. Indeed, connections make the world go round. However, connections don’t necessarily provide the freshmen with jobs for which they’re unqualified. Rather, connections work to bypass the arbitrary selection system.

If we concede that there are in fact some freshmen qualified for internships, why the overblown stigma?

I in no way intend to blindly advocate for freshmen. Admittedly, by virtue of being a year younger, we are less mature. It may seem as though we’re infected by some freshman disease. We’re awkward. We’re not terribly worldly. We do silly things. For example, half of the freshman class naively applies for USG positions and I still can’t identify half of the eating clubs.

However, “freshman” shouldn’t necessarily be the epithet that causes you to be turned away from the internship. Then again, who knows: Maybe marching back and forth in a kilt for another year will distinguish a sophomore applicant from the others. After all, how many other internship applicants have their own 16-inch bearskin cap and a sporran? How many can load an authentic 18th-century musket?

I complain about the freshman-year internship search, but really this is only a harbinger for a much bigger battle senior year. If applying to be an unpaid lackey, to shred paper and get coffee, is so difficult, then what hope is there for the little fish in the real job pool?

Sure, freshmen aren’t necessarily as qualified as non-freshmen. In social situations especially, the “disease” that seems to infect freshmen is undeniable. Though it may exist in academics and the internship-hunt too, it is perhaps blown out of proportion.

Monica Greco is a freshman from Brooklyn, N.Y. She can be reached at mgreco@princeton.edu.