I finished my first year of college, I'm out of high school, the summer time should be the best part of my year, right? Don't get me wrong, it is. Beach days, Netflix binge watching, nights that never end with friends, and oh yeah, working.
I've learned the hard way being out of college, and summer time isn't all peaches and cream. It's actually the time where instead of working just our minds during the academic year, we're working our bodies too. The summer is when some of us may be living the dream, but for other's it's a constant rotation of work, play, work and play. The lucky ones have landed jobs years before that they can always come back to, but for some of us, hours of writing out resumes, applications, and driving to all sorts of different interviews consumes the very beginning of being home the first couple of weeks from college.
Now, I know some of you might say, "Well why didn't you try to land a job before coming home?" Oh, trust me, I tried! However, I realized it's a pretty tough world out there, and employers don't always want to hire teenagers just for the summer. Little did I know, it's almost July and I would still be searching for jobs! The first couple of weeks of summer, I went to the beach, movies all the time, bonfires, sat around watching television and re-adding the freshman fifteen I just barely worked off... yikes. On the bright side, I did end up finding a job after I finally got up and realized I really needed some kind of income. Now I'm looking for more hours, side babysitting jobs, dog walking, anything that'll help get a little extra cash.
What did I learn from all of this? Sitting around whining about all the money I wish I had, isn't going to help me buy this double patty burger from Five Guys. What I needed to do was take my toes out of the water, butt out of the sand, and go out and get these jobs. I feel these days, we teens, think if we put out one or two feelers for jobs, we've done all we could. What I learned is, if I want something, I must make it mine. Not even just for jobs, if we want any sort of prize, we have to work hard for it, and things aren't always going to come easy. A few applications aren't going to make the cut. Making phone calls, following up on interviews, putting out applications to six, maybe even ten places, is what we have to do. Signing up for odd jobs, networking through people, anything, we have to do it. Not only does it "build character" as some would put it, it teaches us, everything isn't always going to be handed to us on a silver platter, and we have to work for it, work harder than Rihanna does even in her new hit song.
I guess the lesson here readers would be if you want to make money and have a job after your first semester of college, work for it. Put out those applications, make those interview appointments, speak with managers, ask around and take a day off from the beach. If I can put off going to the beach for one day, so can you.
