When the world is competing for college, you compete for college. When the world is competing for jobs, you compete for jobs. When the world is competing for internships, you compete for internships. Right? Right. Because that’s what you do. You compete. Because that’s what the world is doing.
Right?
Oh good grief. Please tell me that’s not the reason.
The reality is that competition will always exist. However, it’s up to you to determine why you do or don’t want to compete. If you’re up for the challenge, you should always know why—maybe not exactly why, but some sort of why—and if you’re not, it shouldn’t be just because you’re afraid. Regardless of which path you choose, you also need to determine how you can set yourself up well. As you consider where you fall on this spectrum of competitiveness, here are some things to consider as you make plans for the summer after your first year of college.
Use Your Resources
Before you pursue any option, please consult with your Career Services office and all of the great people over there. There are many benefits if you start meeting with them your first year, including:
1) You won’t be afraid of them and they’ll (hopefully) remember you for your diligence.
2) You won’t be afraid of internship- and job-searching and they’ll (potentially) think of you when unique opportunities arise.
3) You won’t need to scramble to put resumes and cover letters together right before they’re due (and you can save yourself a whole bunch of anxiety and stress associated with procrastination).
Think About What You’ve Already Accomplished
This is the summer when you have the greatest flexibility because you only have one year of college under your belt. That means you only have a year’s worth of exposure to course content and a year’s worth of access to co-curricular activities, extracurricular activities, and on-campus work. That also means you’ve *already* had a year’s worth of exposure to all of these things. Don’t sell yourself short—a year is still a lot, so think about what you’ve already accomplished.
To be sure, if you’ve honed in on an academic area of interest and done particularly well in that area, an internship isn’t far out of reach, especially if you’ve begun to establish a foundation of knowledge and skills. (I’m thinking writing skills, research skills, laboratory experience, statistics background, programming background, etc.) Similarly, if you’ve contributed significantly to an organization or several organizations, you may have developed the leadership and teamwork skills that an internship recruiter is looking for. Additionally, you may have acquired skills in photography and design through your time with the campus newspaper, or skills in marketing and public speaking through your time serving as a tour guide or acting on stage.
Think About What You’re Truly Interested In
Whether you apply in your first year or later, taking a look at what internships of interest are looking for will give you a sense of the kinds of experiences that you need to acquire in order to be seriously considered. The key issue isn’t whether you want to be competitive for the sake of being competitive, but whether you want to be competitive because the internship is something that you’re truly interested in pursuing. Applying for the sake of applying will come through in the cover letter, if not the interview. Always know why you want something—it’s not good enough that it’s prestigious or it’s something that everyone else wants. If you don’t want it, don’t waste the recruiter’s time or take up a spot for consideration. It’s neither fair to you nor to others who really want the position. Be thoughtful and considerate, both of yourself and those around you. Whether you get it or not, competition for something you truly want is worth way more of your time than for something you don’t.
Build Your Connections and Networks
Internships specifically targeted toward first-years may be few in number (for the reasons I mentioned earlier). However, this is where alumni and parent networks come into play. Whether here at Kenyon or at Dartmouth (where I’m an alumna), alumni and parents are consistently interested in helping current students find internship, job, and volunteer opportunities. Before you fold in the towel, make sure you’ve leveraged all of your connections and networks. While your circle may still be small at this point, spend the time to nurture it. Even if the benefits don’t show up for your first-year summer, they may very well show up for your sophomore and junior summers, and perhaps even after graduation.
Consider doing informational interviews with alumni and parents you know (and perhaps even ones you don’t know, but can identify with the help of your Career Services office). These are essentially interviews where you find out what daily work looks like for a particular individual in a particular area doing a particular job. You can also find out how they got to where they got to, in case you’re interested enough to pursue a similar professional path. Informational interviews are low-cost and high-worth ways to form relationships that can help you (and perhaps your peers) down the line, especially in terms of figuring out what to do with your life and finding supportive mentors and role models.
Think About Realistic Options
Ok, but what do you do if you can’t get an internship but really want to work? You can only spend so much time thinking ahead to future summers and future internships. At some point, you need to focus on the present and what you’re most qualified for at this point. Furthermore, maybe you’re not interested in any of the internship opportunities out there. Maybe what you truly want to do doesn’t exist yet. Or maybe you simply have no idea.
As I mentioned at the outset, this is the summer where you have the greatest flexibility. Do you want to be a barista at your local coffee shop? Do you want to work as a camp counselor at your childhood camp? Do you want to wait tables or pursue retail? Do you want to work for your parents or your friend’s parents? For some of you, you might answer yes to one of these questions. Your first year was challenging, and you want to come back to something familiar that you know you can do well. For some of you, these questions may be more “Can you” rather than “Do you want to” questions. In those cases, you should consider whether you can find meaning and value in the work that you do, whatever it ends up being.
That’d be the biggest takeaway from thinking about what realistic options exist. Will you be able to come back to campus and articulate what you got out of summer work? Whatever you choose to do, you need to be able to comment on lessons learned, skills developed, challenges met, and everything in between. Don’t come back empty-handed.
Looking back on this now, I can’t help but smile. When we first visited this house, the kitchen floor dipped so deep that it was practically touching the ground. When we left, the homeowner had a beautiful safe, dry, and even floor.
To Work or Not to Work?
If you’re in a position where you don’t have to work and can engage in other opportunities, embrace your reality. Not everyone has the chance to not work over the summer, so take full advantage of your situation and consider how you’re going to make the most out of it. Are you serving on a mission for your religious organization? Are you volunteering at a community garden near home or on a farm in another part of the world? Are you backpacking across a continent or several continents, alone or with family and friends? Are you traveling to faraway places that you’ve never been? What are you doing with that significant expanse of time? Engage with people. Commune with nature. Reflect on yourself. Write about your experience. Photograph it. Share it. As with any sort of experience, think about what you’re getting out of it that’s worth the time you’re putting into it. In some cases, your opportunities could inspire others to seek out those opportunities for themselves.
Continue Your Academic Journey
For some of you, other opportunities will involve the chance to continue your academic journey. Whether you seek to make up credits lost during the first year or get ahead on credits for the second year, study abroad or study domestically (at home or elsewhere), and pursue coursework for some or all of the summer, consider where you want to devote your academic energies and why. College is hard enough during the academic year. If you’re going to pursue additional coursework over the summer, make sure you do so with a clear purpose and a strong drive to do well. This is your chance to get right those things that you got wrong.
While I generally recommend summer coursework as an option for first-year students to consider, my biggest concern is burnout. If you pursue academic opportunities, think about whether the time (and money) will be well-spent. Will you be able to make better academic decisions in the sophomore year? Will you use the time to hone your time management and study skills? Will you get certain requirements (especially the ones that make you anxious) out of the way? Will you get exposure to people and places you might not otherwise get at school? As I keep saying, every decision should have a reason behind it. Make sure you think through whatever you choose to take, why you need or want to take it, and what you’ll get out of it.
A Little of Everything
The summer months are long. If you have the chance to do a little of everything, I’d suggest you do it. Not only because variety is the spice of life (which it is), but also because the rest of your life will be an attempt to balance all of the different things that you care about. While the summer may be a bit of a break (and you should certainly appreciate the respite), keeping several things in the air will make it that much easier for you to manage life upon your return to school. You certainly wouldn’t have forgotten how to juggle.
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