‘Tis the season for summer internship searching, a wondrously stressful time that gives students a brief glance into what it’s going to be like to search for a job after college. Add this application process on top of regularly scheduled coursework, club commitments, and trying to retain some semblance of a social and life, and well...
So, in order to alleviate some of my own stress (and hopefully, some of yours as well), here’s the summer internship search as told by the characters of the best mood-lifting show ever, "Parks and Recreation." After all, the hunt for a summer internship means going through stuff like:
1. Being asked “so, what are you doing this summer?”
2. Accepting that you can’t spend the entire summer in bed watching Netflix.
3. Updating your resume for the first time in months...maybe years.
4. Trying to make yourself sound smart in cover letters.
5. Only finding internships that have little or nothing to do with your career interests.
(And then you apply anyways, because you need to find something.)
6. Seeing that a company requires your resume, cover letter, writing samples, references, class schedule, a blood sample, your first born child, and the internship is full time and unpaid.
7. Finding an obvious typo in your resume after you’ve already sent it to like 5 companies.
8. Applying to 20+ internships on top of all of your normal schoolwork.
9. Waiting and waiting and waiting to hear back from someone.
10. Finally hearing back from a company and scoring an interview.
11. Trying to act like a normal human adult in interviews.
12. And, finally, landing an internship that is in a field you love and maybe even pays.
(At least, theoretically)
