Picture this: It’s Jan. 20, and it's the start of second semester. Summer feels like years from now but you’re okay with that because you have a brand new semester that you’re ready to take on.
Now it’s finals week and you are so ready to be done with all of those classes and work that you struggled with for 16 weeks. Summer is just around the corner and you could not be more excited.
It’s two weeks into summer, and you are already dying to go back to school. It was nice being home for a little while, but you miss spending all of your time with the friends you made in college.You miss always having something fun to do on the weekends and the comforting feeling of independence. This is the summer of the average college student.
Summer is supposed to be a time to relax and enjoy time off from school. Growing up, summer was all that kids would look forward to because of the lack of commitments and the stress free time with friends. For those two to three months, summer was a gift to students and a time to take part in recreational activities such as camps, fairs and sports. Summer meant going on vacations with your family and leaving your hometown for even just a week. Parents would take off for that time and enjoy it with their kids. Summer was a blessing to these kids.
However, these kids have now grown into college students and summers have changed tremendously. I, myself, am among these college students experiencing a summer much differently than I did in my youth.
After a year of blowing through money, college students realize they need a job for the summer. Most college students spend their summers working to prepare for the next school year of spending and working to pay off some college debt in the process. The thought of someone asking me to cover a shift gets me gidy because it means making that much more. Free time is spent recovering from those long double shifts and resting up for the next.
Some college students also decide to take up summer courses at a local community college or even take online classes to get ahead in their journey. For some students, maybe they're just trying to stay on track to graduate in four years. The graduation rate of four years is declining at a rapid rate and now in days colleges make it very difficult to graduate on time if students change their majors. This calls for summer classes. Whether it is a three-unit GE class that a student is taking to get it over with or 12 units because she changed her major three times freshman year, *cough me cough* summer classes also take up a large amount of this “relaxing” time.
Welcome to the real world. Summers aren’t so fun anymore. For those that don’t have to work or take classes and are actually having fun this summer, consider yourselves lucky. A little advice from this gal taking 12 units and working double shifts: For those of you who haven’t yet gone off to college and blown through their bank accounts, enjoy everything while it lasts.
