chapotraphouse

Same flavor and it certainly doesn't help when/if you land an interview.

Well fair enough, what other routes are there to get internships do you think?

the following is assuming you're in the US:

i think in general, and definitely my experience, that getting grad school paid for is considerably easier, structurally. my undergraduate cost me a boatload. my MSc cost me like $400 in lab fees. undergraduate is the "cash cow", but the university runs on exploitable grad student labor through assistantships and tuition waivers for "university employees". this is where you work some almost full time job being a figure-it-out-and-do-all-my-scut for a research lab/team at some R1 school, and then also take 1-2 classes a semester, mostly in that same department that your boss is in, and for your masters research project, you glob on to whatever research project they are running and carve out some little piecemeal research question for your own limited investigation. in theory, you could totally go rogue and dream up whatever question you want, but its easy to paint oneself into a corner.

this is a tricky route because you're effectively signing up to be the serf of some tenure tracked faculty and many younger faculty are careerist psychos who were traumatized by their advisor and are now going to visit that trauma on their own grad students. if you can find an older professor, they can be more chill because they have less to prove. sometimes.

anyway, so you're taking classes, doing that homework, doing scutwork most hours of your day, and also having to learn how all kinds of equipment works and following weirdly complex/ad-hoc procedures. if your relationship with the professor goes bad before you can get your MS, you're kinda fucked unless you can find another prof to take you on and help you across the finish line.

an MS opens more doors into federal and state gov jobs and is about 2-3 years ish for part timers.

Pros:

• you can pause your student loans because you're technically back in school (though if you're going non-profit/state work, i wouldn't. i would look in PSLF.)
• after 2 years as a research tech + MS, you will have enough fodder after that to have an "impressive" resume/CV
• in theory, you are getting paid to go to grad school and develop expertise
• there is a camraderie to being a grad student with other grad students. you're all nerds, you're all broke. they know about cheap housing and bus schedules and cheap food.
• a broadly recognized as respectable way to press pause on entering the job market
• aside from specialized knowledge and experience, in terms of professional development you will get a lot better at written and oral communication in those topics and public speaking more generally. if you suck, you'll become OK. if you're OK, you'll become good. if you're good, you'll become great.

Cons:

• the academy is second only to the military for harassment and bullying. motherfuckers can be toxic AF and the institution will protect them at your expense.
• it fucking sucks to work all day and then have homework and class. my social life and hobbies were fucked.
• the PhD cult will try to recruit you into doing a 5+ year bid instead of a 2+ year bid. a PhD informally closes certain professional doors and has a way of narrowing the horizon to include just the academy. i know people who have made it work and "do well" now, but honestly i don't think the juice is worth the squeeze for mental/emotional development. tenure tracked junior faculty with intact souls are the exception.
• the public university system is very neoliberal anymore and nowhere is this more evident than as a grad student at an R1. the most odious aspect is that the people who are most highly remunerated at these institutions pretend they are public servants and engaging in public intellectualism instead of the most base and vain careerist sophistry. do not dispell their illusions or they will probably try to destroy you.

the way you get into this is looking at job openings at the R1 on campus, in the department that you would want to attend graduate school. you would apply for the job and once you figure out who the professor is that would be your supervisor, tell them you are interested in graduate school and inquire if that's an option. look up everything you can on that professor on their university profile and if you are actually interested in their research, that can really work in your favor in pitching yourself. someone who is curious about what they are curious about and can critically engage with the research is a rare diamond for a research professor. you also want to find a way to have candid conversations with their other grad students and see what they say, but you'd probably have to be stealthy about that.

i don't know if i fully recommend this path, but it exists, i took it out of frustration, and it worked out. if you've worked shit jobs before, you can handle the scut easy.

Yeah. Getting internships in college is important if you want to go into industry, so it's unfortunate the school let you down in this way. Often schools will have career fairs or databases of registered internships through their career office, and those offer higher chances of success than applying from outside channels.

Why do you give a shit about gatekeeping jobs for your employer lol

I always heard there's a few rounds of AI reading before you get read by a person (if ever), and in your case the applicant can always rewrite to sound less AI-y. For instance, when you submit your paper for publication to the world's laziest journal remove 'some say' and 'certainly', but you'll probably be fine.

Typical union style seniority pay (some exceptions, like if you can get security clearance you will get higher paying contracts, etc)

You can go into:

-Navigation (deck-hand to captain)

-Stewards (kitchen to chef to quartermaster)

-Engine (Jr Engineer to Sr Engineer); the initial apprenticeship program rotates you through all three

As the union is predicated on keeping sailing jobs occupied by US sailors you do have to swear an oath of loyalty to the US - but i mean it's just words really. The training programs also have some quasi-military style structure. You kind of start off in a boot-camp scenario but it's mostly to weed people out.

The only real catch is double-edged: You will be away from family and friends for long periods of time; so great if you don't really care for your family and don't have super close IRL friends. While you are in the training program and while you are at sea you have no expenses - this is why you only have to worry about rent for part of the year while you aren't working contracts. So, if I were doing the program I'd be looking for a situation where I either live family while I'm not at sea or find a person will to rent to me month-to-month. Paying rent for a residence you aren't living in for the majority of the year would be silly unless you are like the head of a family that at least gets to use it while you are away or something.

https://www.seafarers.org/training-and-careers/jobs/entry-program/

It's a bit of a rugged life-style but some people like that. Makes you feel alive and all. For the women comrades FYI: about 25% of the people enrolled while I was there were women and they seemed to be treated very well by staff and other people enlisted in the program. Felt very safe for everyone and everyone was pretty cool/chill (except the Commandant, he was cool but definitely not chill lol).

While the lifestyle is a bit rugged, the food is fucking amazing - no joke. People at sea eat like kings (for free apparently).

One of the cool things is that they have political education classes where they give you some union history (watered down, they aren't revolutionaries) and teach the power of unions to their members. Self-serving sure, but it is literally the only time I've seen institutionalized political education in action in the US, was pretty wild.

Honestly I'd recommend it to anyone who is:

-Is young and directionless

-Wants to be in a unionized sector

-Loves the open sea / wants to travel in a non-tourist way

-Is economically vulnerable

Don't apply if any of these describe you though:

-Unwilling to work on your drug habits/addictions

-Unwilling to work on your fitness/health generally

-Unwilling to tolerate any forms of authority/discipline

-Unwilling to to complete a 3 month training program where you live expense-free but have no income and are essentially chaperoned.

FYI, though: they will not tolerate drugs or alcohol while in their training program and if you get caught inebriated while working a contract they will come down hard on you (they have a rehab clinic they'd force you to attend).

But for real, if you are someone who just cannot find any economic traction and are living a meek existence - please apply for this program - you'll actually get to start living your life.

Of course if you don't like the sea/ocean then probably not for you.

Before anyone asks why I left the program, it was because of family shit - turns out mine falls apart without me around.

If any one does go through with an application my advise is to convince them why the program suits your particular life. Just like most jobs they are going to turn away applicants who seem to be applying on a whim who they might have a bad ROI on.

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More proof that capitalists are vampires