My Sun career comes down to this: 800 words and then I’m finished, done for good. What that means I don’t know, but it does leave some room to be creative. No matter what I've written, there will be no worrying about firing or suspension, no need to take angry calls and no requirement to respond to livid e-mails. There will be no looking back.

I’ll start by noting that the very fact that you’re seeing this column means I’ve moderated a bit. There are many things I would have loved to have written but, if I did, this would be in the trash and instead you’d be taking in some wisdom from the College Exchange. Thus, in the spirit of getting this printed, I’ve forsaken some of that wiggle room.

If you’re thinking about becoming a lawyer, one of the first things you’ll hear as an incoming law student is something like this: “First year, they scare you to death. Second year, they work you to death. Third year, they bore you to death.” True? More than a little.

Law school is like nothing you’ve ever done before. This becomes apparent on the first day when it takes one intense hour to read 10 pages. Then you go to class and a professor starts with the Socratic method: question upon question about a particular case. That’s why it takes an hour to read 10 pages. You have to be ready for anything the professor might ask. And then the professor stumps you on the third question anyway.

I just found out that there is a mistake on the resume that I have been sending out in my job applications.

A member of Cornell Career Services notified me this week that this error accounts for why I failed to secure an interview with a potential employer.

I’m not talking about some wee, negligible oversight — a “9” where there should be an “8,” a double space instead of a single one. I’m talking about a mother load of a blunder, as monstrous and glaring as it is undeniably and irreversibly catastrophic.

Under my “Home Address,” I have the following listed:

Toronto, Ontario

Canada

Not a grammatical glitch or a formatting failure, but a stain on my record all the same.

[“This email is being sent to all students who … did not receive an interview.”]

Frail, pristine Caitlin Richter, who probably still carries My Little Ponies in her Paul Frank lunchbox, maintained her post as the sole object of my concentrated pre-pubescent scorn until one fateful day in first grade music class. She was whispering so softly into her recorder that she could’ve been inhaling, while I was pounding a triangle against a snare drum with all the aggression of an overworked nanny pushed too far. Suddenly, my classmates stopped playing their instruments and watched in awe as a puddle grew from under her jellies to the edges of my light-ups. Then, with yogi-like tranquility, Caitlin Richter pulled off the type of scapegoat evasion that would inspire the likes of Spitzer:

“It’s too hot in here.”

To the Editor:

Re: “How Much is a Summer Worth?,” Opinion, Feb. 25

The article “How Much is a Summer Worth” really hit the nail on the head. Unpaid internships are just a form of exploiting college students for free labor. In addition, they favor students who do not need to work for money and whose parents are willing to subsidize their expenses for a summer. This is an unfair issue that is not brought up nearly enough. Anyone who works deserves at least the minimum wage and that applies to college students as well.

Laurenn Berger ’09

There I sat contemplating the news — “Mr. Charles will call you at 9:30 a.m. for your phone interview.” I had never had a formal job interview, yet alone a long distance one over the telephone. There was some upside to not having to interview face-to-face I figured; I had time to plan out exactly how I wanted everything to go. Would I dress up in a suit to put myself in the interview mind set? Would I be more comfortable and relaxed if I did the interview au naturale? What questions could I possibly be asked? How would I respond? After jotting down some brief notes, and after deciding that regular clothing would suffice, I was seemingly ready for the interview.

Being that I am incredibly poor and even more incredibly unemployed, I thought that Cornell students could benefit from some of my job-seeking wisdom. I will not make any illegitimate claims to job-hunting greatness, but let me just say that I have worked summers at a guitar store. Impressive, no?

The first thing that any good-to-great career counselor will tell you is that you’re going to need a great resume. And any great resume is going to start out with a great objective. For this step, it will be sufficient to reword the phrase, “please employ me so that I can pay my loans,” in as flowery a way as your sense of morality allows you.