Over winter break, I wrote down my goals and objectives for my sophomore year, which included getting a summer internship abroad through SCU’s Global Fellows program. The internship sounded perfect and aligned with my personal and professional career goals allowing me to travel abroad, work with an organization whose focus was sustainability, and meet and connect with like-minded peers at SCU and leaders abroad who were advancing social justice and making a difference in their local communities. I was enthusiastic about my summer plans and confident that it would consist of me interning abroad through Global Fellows before heading off to study abroad in Central America. It would be a summer filled with global perspectives and new experiences abroad.

And so, I spent a good portion of winter break preparing for the internship: perfecting my application essays, reading student blogs, and researching different organizations so that I could be as prepared as possible for my interview.

And then I fucked up the interview.

At the time, I was juggling a million things. Besides going to class and (barely) doing my homework, I had just started working 5 hours per week at my on-campus job and was in the midst of trying out for the women’s rowing team, a 20.5-hour time commitment per week. (At least. This was not including the time it took to walk to and from the athletic facilities, drive to the lake, or shower afterward.) Additionally, I was a board member for an on-campus club, which was an average of 6.75 hours per week with its mandatory meetings and social events. I was in a constant state of stress and exhaustion and was spending most of my free time napping. Looking back, I don’t know how I handled it all.

So, opening the email and reading that I had not been selected for the internship came as no surprise, though I was still disappointed. Hearing that I was a waitlisted candidate amazed me because I had walked out of the interview feeling neither confident nor proud of myself.

Getting rejected from Global Fellows was definitely a wake-up call and allowed me to realize and refocus my priorities in life, which includes my mental and physical health. For weeks, I hadn’t been getting enough sleep and being so involved with extracurriculars ultimately harmed not just my summer plans but my grades and my overall wellbeing.

What hurts is that I know that I’m just as qualified of a candidate as other people who applied. If I had done the interview earlier before the quarter started to ramp up, I believe that the outcome would have been entirely different. But the bad interview happened, and I want to learn from this experience so I don’t make the same mistake again.

Although we attempt to forge paths for ourselves, nothing is ever set in stone. Our journeys are constantly changing paths because we are changing people. We make mistakes, but we can learn from these experiences to better ourselves as people.

Moving forward, I know I can always apply for Global Fellows next summer, so I’ll have another shot to prove myself. Getting rejected from the internship has also allowed me to pursue more opportunities, like going on a two-week immersion trip to India, an experience that I know will be just as meaningful. And that still leaves me a month and a half of free time for a TBD adventure. My original summer plans have diverged and honestly, it’s scary. Yet, I believe there’s

beauty in the unknown, and this summer I attempt to find it, wherever that may lead me.