Recently, I have been reflecting upon my college experience since this spring will be my last semester of college. In the past three and a half years, I have made so many awesome friends, learned about the most fascinating things, and laughed harder than ever before. However, there are two things I wish that I had done better in my college career because it would have improved my life during and after college.
First, I wish I had sought after more internships and fewer volunteer opportunities. I have always been super passionate about volunteering because I love bettering the community around me and seeing other people smile. Unfortunately, this love for volunteering and nobody effectively explaining to me why internships matter so much, caused the experience section of my résumé to run a little thin.
For some reason, it took forever for it to click that internships are so important because they demonstrate that somebody actually wanted you for your particular talents. Internships validate your claim to potential employers that you have the capabilities for your desired job and give you a better chance of success. Additionally, internships allow you to get a feel for the field that you want to go into and give you the chance to realize if this field is right for you. Yet, you can only apply for internships for so long. There is a point after you graduate when your chances of getting an internship aren't very good. Please take advantage of any decent internship opportunities you can because I wish I took more.
Second, I wish I had worked harder to find balance in my life and did not let myself feel inferior to other college students. I remember my first day of preview, listening to everyone comparing their SAT scores and saying nothing because my scores were not near theirs at all. This caused me to be afraid that I was never going to measure up to other people academically and put a fire under me to perform better than other people had implied I would. Yet, my drive to get really good grades left me on shaky ground at times. Striving to find a balance between success and mental stability truly is the biggest challenge in college. Personally, I should have put more time into taking care of myself and been a little less obsessed about school. I honestly think I would have been happier and more productive had I let myself take more breaks to do the things I enjoyed.
With that said, I hope that my self-reflection, either confirm that you are on the right track or make you realize that there are things you can change about yourself. College is supposed to be a place to help you learn and grow into the adult you want to be, but it can be like an endurance race. Do everything you can to maintain your motivation to keep going and enjoy yourself while you are at it because you'll probably never get to experience college again.
