Marketplace, June 2025
When Rich Harrill was 17, his dad came to him one day just after the school year ended. “And he said, ‘Be ready in the morning.’ I said, ‘Where are we going?’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about it,’” he said. The next day, Harrill’s dad dropped him off at a peach farm on the edge of their town in South Carolina. That’s where Harrill worked for the next seven summers. “Working in the shed, working in the field — whatever was needed.” Harrill is now a professor of hospitality at the University of South Carolina.
Even though that’s a world away from peach farming, he said says those summers taught him something. “Things I needed later in life — perseverance and discipline,” he said. These soft skills are a crucial benefit of summer jobs. “This is what teaches good work habits,” said Alicia Modestino, a professor of public policy at Northeastern University. Good things come to students who work summers, she said. “Their attendance at school increases and they’re less likely to fail courses.”
