As the semester rapidly heads towards its conclusion, many of us are wondering what to do with our summers.

The answer to this question used to be relatively simple. In the good old days of elementary through high school, summers were synonymous with freedom. Once that last bell let out school after the last day of class or last final, we were all staring at three solid months of being lazy, binge watching television shows, staying up late, and hanging out with friends. The summers were a time of happiness, relaxation, and joy.

Now, this period of time has been transformed into something looked at with pressure and stress; We are faced with the task of utilizing those three class-free months to find some kind of job or internship that will better our resume and presumably make us better fit for the workforce and thus more appealing to potential future employers. Some people find that these positions fall into their laps: their favorite professor offers them a research opportunity on campus, or their parent has a friend who works for a company that does practically what they dream of one day doing professionally. Wouldn't it be nice if this was how it worked for us all?

Unfortunately, though, most of us have no idea how to even begin to figure out what type of internship we want to have. Figuring that part out might be considered the most difficult aspect of the hunt, but that's assuming we are considered qualified and get hired. Only so many companies offer internships for college undergrads, and that number drops steeply once you take into account desired locations, paid versus unpaid, hours, and every other variable. Depending on your desired field, there might be a high level of competition to be dealt with and, if that competition includes upperclassmen who are more experienced and qualified, things continue to look pretty grim. Suddenly the number of feasible options drops even further and we're left with a handful, if that. .

I recently explored internships in a career I'm intrigued by, but the results were dismal. For a large majority of these internships, I had not taken enough classes in the field and thus did not have enough writing samples to submit. The other offered by the same company might have suited me well, but the hours were that of a full-time job and the real kicker was that the position was unpaid. Here in the community of anxious students on the internship hunt, we call that ridiculous.

I found another internship that seemed to have good prospects. It was in a field I want to further understand and there was plenty of time to submit the simple application. On the surface, that sounded ideal but as I looked closer I discovered that the internship demanded applicants verify that they can earn class credit for the internship prior to applying. Mandating class credit for an internship just complicates everything and in one fell swoop an application that had at once seemed quick required meetings with campus career counselors and advisors.

Summer internships can be incredible once they're all sorted out. The months leading up to the summer, though, are wildly stressful and much of the stress comes from the not knowing. These months force us to ask ourselves what we truly want to pursue, what will give us the most practical experience while also improving our resume, and how much of that "good old day" freedom we are willing to sacrifice in pursuit of professional success. It's a hard conversation undergraduate students are forced to ask themselves and I myself feel as if I'm running around in circles trying to plan it all out. I think the best thing to do is continue to seek options and understand that, as we approach true adulthood, some decisions about our paths must be debated but that being an adult does not mean we sacrifice the right to seek out guidance. It can be a trying time, but failing to find the "perfect" internship is not the end of the world. It's important to remember that we still have time.