As of late, it seems that everyone in their sophomore and junior years of college are looking to get internships, jobs that are in their desired career path, or take classes for their major this summer. I wanted one myself, looking for hours on LinkedIn and Indeed for a marketing internship for this spring, as I wanted to study abroad this summer.
However, as the spring internship recruitment cycle came to a close, I ended up not getting an internship. I began to doubt my decision to study abroad, feeling like I couldn’t be successful in marketing post-grad if I didn’t get an internship this quarter. I started to look for marketing programs for the summer, so come fall, I would have at least some experience. However, I still wanted to study abroad and experience other parts of the world.
So, I said, (maybe in a moment of weakness), screw it: I’m going to study abroad, even if the program isn’t the most practical. After months of deliberation, I decided to apply to study abroad in Florence, Italy, where I hope to take a class on Italian marketing, allowing me to see how marketing is done in the field. I have been officially accepted into the program, but, in hindsight, there are times I regret not seeking out a summer internship more thoroughly.
These doubts still remain as the spring and summer gets closer and closer, but I don’t think I’m alone in having these doubts. It’s so normal for college students, especially ones at universities like UCLA, to seek out the practical choice when it comes to your career plans and academics. We put so much pressure on ourselves to find out how to do college the ‘right’ way that we forget college is a place where we can start exploring what we want our future careers and social lives to look like. Especially as college students so wrapped up in what we want to do after we graduate, we forget we are in our late teens and early twenties, where we have so much life to live. And, in my opinion, we need to begin having social and extracurricular priorities, as they are the key to maximizing college.
For me, that means that I want to see different parts of the world and travel, so studying abroad seemed like the right choice for me for this summer. For you, it may be getting an internship in a field you are interested in, or camping with your friends for three weeks in the Pacific Northwest, or working at your family’s business for the summer. At the end of the day, I think if we look back at our college experiences and see four years full of jobs and commitments when we could have had more fun, we may have some regrets.
I originally decided to study abroad this summer to see different parts of the world before I felt the desperate need to achieve my career plans. And once I began to doubt this decision, my priorities shifted – but this wasn’t a bad thing! These doubts allowed me to consider looking at career fields I am interested in, without compromising my extracurricular priorities. I looked for programs that were somewhat related to marketing, so I would be able to see what it looks like in a classroom setting while abroad. Ultimately, you cannot go wrong with what you decide to do with your summer, but I urge you to be strategic and look for opportunities with tangible career experience that also leave room for fun.