Ah summer. Those precious three-and-a half months between the spring and fall semester where college students don't have to attend class unless you get stuck taking summer classes, which in that case, I send my deepest apologizes. It's a time to binge watch Netflix without having to worry about your GPA suffering and a time to catch up on all the sleep that was lost during the semester. It is truly a blissful time until the realization of a summer job sets in. Everyone always gets their hopes up for an adventurous summer but the truth is a majority of college students work during their time off because school leaves us flat broke. Internships, co-ops, part time jobs and so on become the norm to earn money and experience before heading back to campus in the fall. You start to live vicariously through your friends' social media as they seem to be on a different vacation each week and wonder where you went wrong in life. We all go through it and we all share and understand these common struggles of working the entire summer away.
1. Landing the job
While trudging through the semester applications have to be spent in prior to the beginning of summer ensure they have time to be reviewed. Internships and co-ops may even require you apply a year in advance. You go through interview after interview without getting any offers and begin to break out into a cold sweat as you watch your bank account plummet towards zero. Finally, a job offer comes. It is usually not the most ideal job but at least you get paid to do it.
2. Working doubles
I have such a love/hate relationships with working doubles. The thought of double the pay is so enticing that I will almost always take the second shift but after the ninth hour on the clock I can't help but wonder why I willingly put myself through this type of torture.
3. The social media tease
While on break, I usually go through my social media to see what is happening in the world outside of work. Half of the Snapchat stories and Instagram posts I encounter consists of people enjoying the beautiful summer weather while the other half is jetting off to their next exotic vacation. Not working and traveling is such a foreign concept to me. I can barely afford my iced coffee at Dunkin' Donuts let alone a trip to the Caribbean. If somebody wants to let me in on their secret it would be greatly appreciated.
4. Going back school to looking like Casper
Some college kids are fortunate enough to work outside as a lifeguard, camp counselor, etc. but many summer jobs are located indoors. Combine this working long hours all summer and you end up with an extremely pale skin tone that makes people wonder if you stepped outside at all during summer. Any color gained tends to fade and the effort becomes pointless .
5. Spending all your money made on textbooks
So the end of the summer rolls around your bank statement finally has more than two digits in it. All your hard work paid off and life is looking pretty good until the realization that textbooks still have to be bought. For some reason these pieces of paper held together by some binding are ridiculously expensive. Every semester you end up spending hundreds of dollars on books even with buying them used or renting them. Each purchase is more painful than the last as you watch your bank account slowly drain back to where it was at the end of the last semester. Hey, at least you have some shiny new textbooks to show off.
As college students, we do what we have to to make it through school. If that means working the whole summer so be it. It's good training for working in the world world and is the best motivator to finish school and get a better paying job that doesn't require you work 100 hours a week to earn a decent pay check.
