As summer break approaches, my email begins flooding with internship opportunities, hints from my mother about how I plan on staying busy this summer suddenly are strategically weaved into any conversation and my friends have started complaining about returning to nanny the brats from down the street. However, I skim the emails, politely distract my mother with a new topic and nod sympathetically when my friends whine about that summer job. This year I plan on fully milking the two college classes I have to keep me from making my summer break — well not a break.
Some could say I'm lazy (grandma, I'm looking at you) and most would ask why? College is several lengthy months that make students feel like their constantly in a marathon, having to sprint past each other and hurdle over obstacles like the temptation of T-Shirt Tuesday or the appeal of attendance not being required. Once you finally cross the finish line after finals, most of us barely have time to catch our breath before we're being prodded toward some internship or minimum-wage busy work to occupy summer months.
However, so often adults and even our peers chime in with that annoying reminder that "Now is the time to start stacking up your resume" or "Earn some extra cash to take back with you in the fall!" and my personal favorite "This is the time to get an early start on making a name for yourself in your major." And all of the above is valid, but I feel like after chasing As and typing 10-page papers, college students deserve a break. To take a seat on the bench and catch our breath before leaping headfirst into the following school year. As glossy and fun college appears surface level, college is hard.
After months of tearing up in Gorgas Library from veering dangerously close to going two days without sleep, or the amount of hours I spend hunched over a book on a scavenger hunt for a question that has a one out of 25 possibility of being on the test. I think I deserve more than having my planner filled with faxing papers, getting some employer's coffee or long shifts at the city pool.
And the argument that now is the time to start early and break into the industry, this is your last few years before you're an adult only turns me off more. Before I make that large stride into adulthood with interviews and cubicles, I want to take advantage of these last few summers I have to do nothing but stare at a Netflix screen.
So as the year comes to a close, I drown Trenta-sized Starbucks coffee and try not to cry when my professor makes the final cumulative. I wouldn't say I do this eagerly, but there is an incentive that the next three months won't be me scanning busy work, or starring in "The Nanny Diaries."
Besides, there will always be internships or an endless supply of kids waiting to be babysat next summer.
