Can we acknowledge how quickly this year flew by? Because it feels like I just arrived at Murray with my friends and family to move into my first dorm. Now, I understand a little more when my parents say, “it feels like yesterday that you were running around in diapers.” In a way, I feel panicky because my life is already moving too fast.
With this panic in mind, I decided that these next few summers were extremely important. In the theoretical timeline of a college student, these are the “last” free summers before we graduate and acquire real jobs. Yes, I have a summer job that awaits me at home, and I am positive everyone else has also plans to save money. But I really feel like choosing what to do with the next few summers is important so that we don’t waste time.
- Take summer classes. They are more expensive, but this also lightens the load of classes during the semester and can get you that degree quicker.
- Find career-building internships. Organizations know that college students need internships in their field and won’t pay. They are 100% taking advantage of that, but still do it. At the end of the day, that is going to build your resume.
- Summer job. College is ridiculously expensive, so side the career centered internship with a job to earn some money.
- Study abroad. My thought process behind this is to do it first because you can take more general classes that will still count towards something. Also, I was told that the best option is to do this first (if it’s during the summer) because it’s fun. A lot of internships require you to be older, so then other summers would be a great time to find good jobs/internships that you can keep going back to.
There are so many productive things that can be done over the summer. It is important to relax and debrief from the year, but make sure you don’t waste it. This is a great time to build your resume and focus on doing things for the future. Read books, get community service hours, go on adventures. Just make sure you aren’t wasting the time.