I’ve officially begun the arduous task of finding a summer internship. No one could possibly enjoy this, I think to myself as I fill out my “Internship Tracker” Google Sheet, hunched over my desk like a 90-year-old man.
I opened my Gmail app on my phone the other day and received my first rejection letter from a company I applied to about a month ago. At this point, a rejection feels more validating than getting ghosted altogether. I’m aware of how early we are in internship season (especially as a public relations major), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
I don’t care what anyone says: the college admissions process was more enjoyable than the internship search. At least during that process, you had a counselor telling you, “You’ll end up where you’re meant to be.” Should I be concerned that not a single person has told me that during this process? Am I not going to end up anywhere? I fear that not having an internship this summer will lead to me living on my parents’ couch immediately after graduation, which I know is completely unreasonable of me to imagine, but you get my point.
I’d quite literally rather be doing anything else, like planning my Christmas wishlist or doing some incredibly premature spring break planning. But no. Instead, I’m skipping dinners and outings during Boston autumn (the best time of year here, undoubtedly) to hunker down in my apartment and lock in on the job search. It’s safe to say I’ve been a little miserable. Is it possible to feel “employed” without having an actual job? Because this is starting to feel like an unpaid job in itself.
At the same time, I couldn’t be bothered. I lack the motivation to fill out application after application. I would consider myself highly ambitious, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that every time I sat down at my desk to get to work, I daydreamed about getting into bed instead with a dessert bowl of my choosing and an NHL game. Or a good doom-scroll. Basically anything that doesn’t involve staring at my computer for another minute. I really miss reading a book without the guilt of feeling like I could be “doing something more productive.”
The other day, my roommate noted that I had been “really locked-in lately,” and that motivated me a little bit. Sometimes it just takes someone else seeing your dedication to boost you forward. I feel more self-motivated to complete my schoolwork because I know what it feels like to work hard and reap results. My academic validation soared to an all-time high during my senior year of high school when I broke through my hatred for math and successfully passed calculus.
The burnout, unfortunately, hit in January of my freshman year of college, when I no longer felt challenged and instead felt stuck. I quite literally remember saying to my parents on the phone last spring, “I wish I had more homework.” Wow, would I come to regret that. Now, I constantly feel like I could be doing something academic, which is fine, as I enjoy school for the most part and love to learn. I spend my days writing press releases, completing 34-problem stats homework assignments, and annotating primary sources from the Renaissance era in Florence. This is all fine by me. But internships, job searching, the future? Not so good. Not so enjoyable.
An internship sounds wonderfully enriching to me, it really does. But to be honest, it’s approaching way faster than I thought it would. And spending so much of my time on what feels like an impossible task lowers my academic drive every day. It’s all anyone talks about. You can’t enter the business building without hearing whispers of an upcoming company releasing its applications, and every conversation with a friend seems to lead back to a “coffee chat” of some sort.
The truth is, as much as I just complained about how debilitating it is to look for an internship, I simultaneously put immense pressure on myself to succeed. How can I find that balance, that sweet spot of being in total control of my career and schoolwork while also finding time to do everything I enjoy?
I’ll let you know if I solve this quandary. It’s feeling like I might be in limbo a little longer, facing rejections and ghosting from potential employers while also making time for the things I love, like writing my whimsy articles, calling my sisters to complain about my problem of the week, and conditioning myself to not completely despise public speaking every time I’m called up to present in class.
Until next time.
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