对很多在校生来说，夏天是用来放松和休息的时间。但也有人选择在暑期找一份工作，这样不仅能挣点零花钱，从长远的角度来讲，还可以学习、积攒职业上的技能。

Have you ever had a summer job? For many young people, summer is a heady period where education stops and fun begins. That said, holidays, festivals and time spent with friends cost money. And the very group who have the time to capitalise on the fun summer has to offer may not have the funds to do so. The solution? A summer job.

The concept of cash-strapped students and younger members of society being gainfully employed over the summer period is not a new one. And there are opportunities out there for those who want to earn. For me it was tending bar at a bowling alley. Vacancies can range from roles as mundane as fry cook, to seasonal work at a theme park, or a cushy job with comfortable conditions. In many cases, the jobs only pay minimum wage, which may only tide you over. But the money is not the only thing that's gained.

"Summer and Saturday jobs prepare young people for successful careers in later life, teaching vital 'soft skills'," says UK Work and Pensions secretary Ester McVey in the Daily Mail. Indeed, when talking about their experiences of summer jobs, people asked for a BBC News article said they got "invaluable training" and learnt skills such as punctuality, tolerance, and the importance of hard graft. These opportunities are thought to be so important that the UK government has placed 20,000 summer job vacancies on a dedicated portal on its Find a Job website. 

This move comes at a time of apparent need. The percentage of young people working while studying has more than halved since 1997, falling from 42% to 18% in 2014. Those are the findings of a UK government report on the death of the Saturday job. Ester McVey believes this is because young people are choosing to focus more on education rather than earning extra money. But that isn't the only problem. It isn't always easy to get a job, as 20-year-old Liberty O'Hagan, a student from Worthing, found. She told the BBC employers see summer workers as a waste of training resources since they inevitably return to university. Not to mention, by working all summer, you may feel you have missed out on the experiences and opportunities your friends have had – travelling and having fun.

While a summer job may not be a dream job, it can teach you things for "a successful future," says Ester McVey in a piece for the Telegraph. What students may consider a means to an end, can, in fact, become a worthwhile career-making endeavour.