The days when summer meant lounging by the pool with friends and the occasional lifeguarding shift or babysitting job are long gone for most college students who struggle to find internships for their summer vacations.
As a junior at Ohio Wesleyan, the pressure to acquire an internship for the summer is constant, however, this pressure increases greatly during the spring semester.
Internships are tricky for multiple reasons. The ability to even be considered for one relies heavily on your connections and who you know, making it difficult for a student who is well qualified but ill-connected to obtain one. Internships are also almost always full of dull administrative work and even are unpaid or only for academic credit, which can make the task of interning seem more like a duty than an interesting way to gain experience.
Typically, students don’t hear of whether or not they receive an internship until April or May, causing students to have little idea of what they’ll be doing for the summer for nearly a third of the academic year, which, from personal experience, can leave one stress ridden about their impending future.
Spending your summer alphabetizing files or getting coffee for your boss for free makes the entire concept of an internship very unappealing, however, it is a necessary in order to ‘bulk up’ a resume.
Internships are only one way for companies to see what you excel at or the skills you have. However, obtaining internships may make a student feel more at ease about their future.
Summers that used to be looked at as a time of leisure, friends and the beach are now stress-filled eight-hour days spent struggling to be the best possible intern in order to receive the best possible reference.
So whether your are stressing over the daunting application and interview process or dreading returning to the same office you interned for last summer, remember to make time to enjoy yourself.
As college students cramming for exams and writing term papers, we should still try to enjoy this time at OWU because as those who have interned before know, the tasks of making 500 copies and getting everyone at the office’s coffee orders right are just as treacherous.