Summer is upon us and we go from spending 24/7 with the same friends, frat lapping, Chimying, being one with Seven47, date parties, philanthropies, all-nighters and oh yeah, classes. The transition of being constantly busy and social to lazy summer days can be a tough one. Within two days, I have separation anxiety from all my friends that become like family during the school year, I miss Norman and I feel weird not having something to do. It can make you go a little stir crazy. My advice for you this summer? Stay busy.
The more you keep yourself active, the faster summer will fly by and the easier it will be for you to get back into the swing of things when August rolls around. I’m not advising you to not take advantage of Netflix or the sun, but I think it’s important to not look at summers the same way we did in high school.
In those days, summer was anticipated as much as Christmas morning. The last day of school felt like you were opening the door to endless possibilities of fun and literal nothingness. I think the most anyone ever had to do was work a summer job or have a “summer reading assignment”, which we all know we never read and just looked up on spark notes the night before school started again.
For upcoming sophomores, look at this as your last summer to maybe relive your high school hero days. It is still socially acceptable to hang out with upcoming college fishies, and go to their high school parties. You can get away with blowing all your cash on country concerts and spending your afternoons with friends, recounting some reckless college stories. However, keep in mind that you are about to start your sophomore year, and sh*t gets real. The things you got away with freshman year, aren’t quite so easy to do sophomore year. The classes are harder, the work load is bigger and the realization that you are almost halfway done with college is scary. I think internship applications alone gave me strands of grey hair, not to mention all my classes. Maybe enroll in a summer class or two, and get some of those gen ed. courses like U.S. history or government out of the way. You don’t get all free reign.
Soon-to-be-juniors, you can either go in a few routes and either one isn’t always easy or stress free. If you’re interning, it can get grueling. These are made to teach you, but also remind you that you really do have to work your way to the top. Just keep in mind,‘started from the bottom, now we here.’ When you’re an intern, no truer words have been spoken. Internships are excellent for college resumes and try to remember that if you work hard and make good connections with people at an internship, this could really benefit you when it is time for that dreaded job search. If you’re not interning, taking summer classes is the smart way to go. Unless you are weirdly ahead or something. If neither of these are your plans, then you are probably (or hopefully) studying abroad, and to that all I have to say is all of us interns are super jealous of you.
For all you gearing up to finish your last, or maybe just first senior year of many to come in college, internships or some kind of job experience is super important. As much as GPAs and college involvement are crucial, so is experience and there is no better experience than internships. And if you haven’t had any luck with some this summer, use this time to start looking at internships around the Norman or Oklahoma City area for one during the school year. I can’t stress enough the importance of these bad boys, and as only a sophomore, my internships have already taught me so much. You can always obtain post-grad internships, but start early and begin the grueling days of coffee runs and slavery for some life and job lessons you can’t find anywhere else. Once again, if you are studying abroad, I am eternally jealous of you. Enjoy and take advantage of every minute.
Graduates? Good luck and arrivederci.
The days of completely care-free summers are over, but this does not mean all the fun is gone. We are older and wiser (maybe). Our early twenties can potentially be some of the best days of our lives, but make sure you stay busy and productive so that your early twenties aren’t spent in your parent’s basement.
