Page 69 - issue-25-fr

ÉLITE FRANÇAISE

NUMÉRO 11, NOVEMBRE 2020

First summer break as a university

student

Rana Doss

Summer break has always been the most exciting time out of 7 interns in the company I was the only pre-
of the year for me. Who doesn't love summer? It's t he senior student. Although I worked as efficiently as
definition of fun, relaxation, travel and most the other interns, everyone was asking me "why?"
importantly freedom; freedom from duties, from Why are you in such a hurry? You're only a first-
work, from stress. At least it was so until this su mmer, year student.
the first as a university student. New concepts sta rt to
emerge out of nowhere. You find your colleagues And this is when I realized that the society can ru sh
writing their resumes or "CVs", seniors informing you into doing things you never planned on doing.
you about the discussable necessity of applying for The constant sense of competition become
internships, and people talking about the importanc e dangerously and uncontrollably consuming. Not that
of gaining real professional experience starting fr om I'm saying that applying for an internship after yo ur
now. first year in College is wrong or undesirable.
Contrarily, it was extremely informative and
I personally was overwhelmed by both, the direct an d beneficial, I may even write about it later in deta il.
indirect pressure that were being built all around me. However, I truly don't believe that students should
This is when reality hit me, our goal as undergradu ate feel stressed or insecure if they can't find an
students was no longer to prepare the most internship after their first year in college, and m ost
astonishing trips, but CVs. I found myself wanting to importantly, they definitely shouldn't feel peer
be an intern "anywhere" so that I write it in my pressured or forced into applying for an internship if
resume and post about it on Facebook. Months of they were not planning on doing it. Instead, maybe
application, stress and even fear passed devouring all an online course or two can be enough, maybe
the fun that a summer is supposed to provide. working on a talent they have, in fact, I am sure
there are hundreds of different ways to benefit fro m
I finally got accepted as an intern in a developmen t summer break.
consultancy in September. I still can't understand
why but I was super proud of myself. On my first Briefly, I personally think that it is crucial that we
work-day, I found out that, follow our own plans and dreams, not the ones that
our society is implying. You decide how You spend
Your summer break.

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