At the end of my Sophomore year, I got my first real summer job. Up to this point, I would go home for summer break and work for a landscaper doing manual labor. This summer, I would be taking summer classes in order to get ahead and complete my double major. This forced me to stay in Reno, and in turn, get a summer job. Through a job fair, looking for an internship, I met my future boss. He convinced me that the internship wasn't best suited for me, and to actually work for him.
The job wasn't anything special, but it was a front desk sales person at a company called Tires Plus. To backtrack a few years, I distinctly remember telling my old football coach that I wanted to work at an auto shop to learn hands-on experience with cars. This would prove to be foreshadowing as not only did I learn how to do some minor things for cars, but I also learned how to interact with customers who aren't happy. My boss taught me a valuable lesson early on, no one wants to be at the auto shop. 99 out of 100 times, they are not there by choice. They are there for routine maintenance, or even worse, something unexpected happened and now their schedule is disrupted and they aren't happy. To add to this, your personal vehicle is likely your second largest asset, next to your house, and oftentimes, isn't cheap to fix. This would result in us having many irate customers. This job brought me experience in dealing with unhappy customers, and it also forced me to understand greater time management, as I would end up continuing this job into my Junior school year.
Junior year finally had classes in the subjects I was truly interested in. I do remember some of my classes from Junior year. But even of the 10 I took, I maybe only remember 2 or 3 of them. It is wild to look back, only 7 years ago, and realize how little of importance those classes were. The social lessons are more important than anything. Now a second year out of the dorms, and with new roommates that are friends, I would learn more about how to interact with friends who need to do something they don't want to do (cleaning/picking up things/being respectful of other schedules) than anything I learned in school. If someone is looking for an alternative to schooling, they need to move in with roommates. Preferably away from where they are from, or at least far enough away that they aren't escaping home all the time. The social lessons this year far exceeded the academic lessons for me.
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