This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Tulane chapter.
Thinking about summer plans sometimes becomes the most stressful part of the spring semester as you wonder how you can spend the summer building your resume, while also leaving time to relax with your friends and family. Because there are so many options for college kids during the summer, it is important to start looking early to make sure that you can contact the right people and get your resume in on time. Here is a list of some of the many options for the summer and the advantages of these opportunities.
- Summer Job: This is definitely the most obvious choice for the summer and there are endless opportunities from working at your favorite store in your hometown to working at a summer camp. Summer jobs provide a great opportunity to earn some spending money for the coming school year and they are often part time, so you will still have plenty of time for fun. Many places have online applications that you can submit, so by simply looking up summer jobs in your hometown you will find a great list.
- Internships: Internships provide great experience as you get to see what professional life is actually like and they look amazing on a resume. It is important to find an internship in a field that you have interest in so that you can see how it might translate to a job after college. Internships may either be paid or unpaid, so pairing an unpaid internship with a part time job might be a good option as well if you are looking for professional experience and some extra spending money. Similar to jobs, you can find internship opportunities online, but reaching out smaller companies in your area that are related to your interests may help you to find an internship that isn’t quite as advertised as the ones on major websites.
- Research: Some majors are conducive to research whether it is in a lab or in a library. Just as Tulane offers great research opportunities with professors, other universities across America do as well. If you have a university near your home, or wherever you may be living this summer, look into research projects at these universities and reach out to professors whose research interests you. The students who assist them throughout the school year often leave during the summer, so many professors are looking for undergraduates to help in their labs during the summer. Again, these opportunities may be unpaid, so pairing it with a summer job may be beneficial.