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How does one go about splitting a summer? Say I have accepted a volunteer summer position with a "big government" agency (10 weeks starting in June), then a week later I was offered a fabulous opportunity abroad with relatively flexible start date. I have enough time to do both and think between the two of them I would be setting myself up for a lot of interesting post-graduation opportunities. How should I approach the first employer? I definitely still want to work there and don't want to seem ungrateful at all . . . the only real "accomodation" I would need is to move my start date up to early May right after finals and maybe work for 9 weeks instead of 10. Does this sound reasonable?

Also, for what it's worth, I am a 2L, neither opportunity pays...will be using school funding in either case, and the two jobs are in very very different fields (the second job is not necessarily "legal") so there will be zero overlap.

I think it's best to discuss splitting before you accept so they can pass on you if they want.

Whether you can dicker about the number of weeks and start date now depends on the type of employer and how large or structured their summer program is. If it's an employer with a few dozen interns, things can get complicated when people start wanting to change around dates.

But considering it's volunteer, I guess you don't have much to lose in asking.