As we all prepare to finally relax and have lots of free time in the summer months, we high schoolers realize we are short on one very crucial ingredient of summer fun: money. Our long-awaited dreams of sleeping in until noon are soon crushed as we realize that we will need cash to purchase the newest Starbucks drinks and Chick-fil-a. As always, everywhere is hiring. It seems every fast food restaurant in town is being kept afloat by distressed teenagers. Most of the high school population will end up at respected New Prague establishments such as Subway and Dairy Queen or the dreaded Hyvee. However, there are a few who have some unique summer employment opportunities.

Working out in the hot sun sounds pretty unappealing to most teenagers, but to Kaitlyn Stoffel it sounds like the perfect Tuesday morning. She decided last summer that she wanted to spend the sunny days working for $8 an hour on a farm. Googling “farms near me,” she landed on Lorence’s Berry Farm. For the first half of the summer, she puts on her baseball hat and picks bright red strawberries from 6 in the morning to noon. She says she likes those hours “because then I have the entire afternoon free.” This farm is a popular place of employment for many Northfield teenagers. Stoffel likes that there are many people her age, but none of them have as much energy as she does at 6 A.M. As summer turns to fall, the farm switches their workers over to picking the ripening raspberries. Stoffel looks forward to spending her second summer at Lorence’s Berry Farm, but this time with a pay of $12 an hour. 

Chase Trygestad isn’t wasting his last summer in New Prague by having fun on the boat. Instead, he plans to begin advancing his experience in the medical field. Trygestad will be working at Fairview Ridges Hospital in Burnsville as a nurse assistant. Next week he will be taking the CNA exam to become a certified nurse assistant, securing him this position at Fairview. The MARS Integrated Healthcare class prepares students for this specific exam and the first steps towards a career in the medical field. CNAs typically work at retirement homes, but Trygestad plans to be more active in Fairview Hospital, and he would like to be exposed to hospital careers. He wants to work in a hospital or with a hospital equipment company. 

Working in a lab isn’t always as sci-fi as it sounds. There aren’t any floating brains in green jars or crazy scientists . . . but in my case, there is a crazy science man. This summer I will be working at Alternative Technologies Incorporated in Burnsville with my dad. When your dad is your boss, you get to know a part of your parents you didn’t even know existed — watching my dad operate huge machines with spinning gasses and valves of colored liquid sounds like something out of Doctor Frankenstein. Alternative Technologies Incorporated is a tiny building overflowing with cardboard boxes from client shipments and science equipment I still do not understand. This summer I will label all the client oil samples from electrical transformers and dictate which testing machine each will go in. I will run around making sure every lab operative has exactly what they need and try not to break any of the huge glass syringes full of varying colored liquid. Despite the fact that most days I will wake up around 4 in the morning, the money will most definitely be worth it.

Although some of us may not have jobs as interesting as others, a summer job is not the point of the summer months. Summer is for taking advantage of your free time and doing all the things school has kept you from doing. Make some good money for summer fun, but remember, you have your whole life to work!