Ali Jackson | When Craig's List just doesn't cut it

At precisely midnight last Tuesday, a girl on the 18th floor of Rodin College House screamed so loudly, her suitemates thought she was being attacked.

Much to their relief (and subsequent anger), upon rushing into her room, they discovered her sitting in one piece at her laptop.

That girl was me and, no, I had not been taken out. I was simply signing up for an internship interview - I almost missed the deadline, okay? Cut me some slack.

Rest assured, I got my spot. But immediately after calming down, I realized that while getting an interview for this internship is awesome, there's one slight problem.

If I get the job, I have no idea where I'm going to live.

You see, the company I'd like to work for is based in New York City and I hail from San Diego, 3,000 miles away. Commuting isn't really an option.

I've started to look into my choices for summer housing, and the outlook is rather bleak.

The cheapest option seems to be living in the dorms at New York University, but even there, the cheapest rate is about $920 a month - and that's in a non-air-conditioned triple. If you've ever been to New York City in the summertime, you know what a problem that presents.

Patricia Rose, director of Penn's Career Services, said "expensive housing is one of the main reasons that students return home for the summer."

For those who live in areas that don't offer much in the way of jobs, returning home isn't possible - at least not if they want to get valuable internship experience that will lead to a job after graduation.

"One of the main problems is when students wish to work in an industry with historically nonpaying or low-paying internships," Rose said. "Places like Capitol Hill or the communications industry generally don't pay their interns."

College senior Corey Smith had an internship in Washington D.C. last summer.

"I really just lucked out with housing," she said. She spoke to friends she had in the area, stayed with one for a month, and subletted from an acquaintance for the remaining two months.

"Be willing to live with people you don't know in order to save money," she suggested. "I moved like five times that summer."

Wharton sophomore Janice Matasi will have the same issues when she gets an internship this summer.

"I need to make some money to help pay for studying abroad," she said, "but that might not work out because of high housing costs."

Matasi is considering living in Philadelphia and working for Housing and Conference Services - students who do this get free housing at the University.

"If I did that, I'd have to work part-time at my internship, though," she said. "I don't think they'd go for that."

Every year, Career Services conducts surveys of students who interned over the summer. According to their numbers, 40 percent of College students rented an apartment, 21 percent lived in a dorm, 32 percent lived at home, and 7 percent lived somewhere else entirely (your guess is as good as mine on that one).

On average, students renting an apartment paid $771 per month while those living in a dorm paid $1,103. This doesn't seem to fit but it can be explained by the number of students who sublet or rent from friends - the range of monthly rents for apartments goes from $250 to $4,000.

Compare this with the average salary: It's about $2,000 per month. That means that students living in the NYU dorms are spending nearly half of their salary on housing. That doesn't include food or anything else that the typical college student wants to do over the summer. But even if you live a barren life, you still have to eat.

I need to work during the summer so I can save money for the upcoming year when I won't have time for a job. Such ridiculous housing costs completely cancel this out.

I could make much more living at home and working as a waitress - with tips (which are mostly tax-free), I'd rack up quite the savings account.

But that leaves me without industry experience that recruiters look for come junior year.

I might be getting ahead of myself because I haven't even gotten the job yet, but just in case, I'm going to start working on my panhandling skills. They may be all that gets me through the summer.

Ali Jackson is a Wharton and College sophomore from Cardiff, Calif. Her e-mail address is jackson@dailypennsylvanian.com. A Little Person-Ali-ty appears on Mondays.

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