How To Waste A Summer

How to Waste A Summer On Campus

No one ever seems to have the right amount of time, either there are not enough hours in a day or people have time to kill. The middle ground between stressed and bored is thin and slippery, without great effort you will slide to either side, risking scraped knees and heart palpitations. This conception is a passive view of time, and therefore flawed. You can control your own time if you try hard enough. This is something that I have learned this summer. I have perfected the skill of being neither bored nor stressed by manipulating time so that I never actually accomplish anything, but I also never feel like I am doing nothing. It is a simple process, if you read further I can teach you how to limit the amount of time available to accomplish your goals on a daily basis, and how to structure your goals so you are content with never accomplishing them. Any student with vague goals they foolishly committed to accomplishing in a moment of weakness can follow my instructions. In the first part of the series I will address how to approach and pace your summer, in the second part I will describe a typical day. While this is specifically tailored to a summer spent on a college campus the basic principles apply to a multitude of situations.

Part I-The Summer

Finding A Job

As the warm summer months approach it is natural to feel inclined to plan. Resist this impulse as much as possible. The earlier you start planning and looking for things to do the more likely it is you will find them. When you do start looking for some form of an internship, start with websites advertising government jobs. Most of these require background checks which take time, so it is likely the application deadlines have already passed. This will discourage and help form the notion there is really no job out there for you. This despondency should interrupt your job search for several weeks. After it wears off look through the competitive internship jobs that will be conducting interviews on your campus. Hastily write cover letters that are decent, but not quite good enough to merit an interview. These interviews can be quite stressful and require practice. Sure, a true procrastinator could go in without practicing but you risk looking foolish. No one wants to look foolish.

When you do not get selected for any interviews wait a week just to make sure they really aren’t going to call you. Then start going through web postings for jobs that sound promising. Immediately eliminate all unpaid jobs, you deserve to be compensated for your effort. Apply en masse to all the jobs that were posted for the summer before or do not have a date attached to them. You feel like you are applying but there is no danger of being contacted. Follow this up by applying to jobs that you would love to do, but for which you are unqualified. Past experience has shown me you should either love what you do or do nothing.

Around this time you should start looking for cushy on-campus jobs. These can include working in administrative positions, as an RA, or for whatever conferences will inhabit your campus over the summer. Place particular attention on research jobs. The more vaguely defined and self-motivated they are the better.

Outside Goals

With barely enough effort you can land something on campus part-time. The part-time distinction necessitates the development of other goals for the summer. When people here you respond to their inquiries with “I am working part-time …” or some variation they will judge you unless you add “and working on my honor’s thesis” or “and working on my novel” or some other noble outside project. The goal (or goals) you choose for the summer must be selected with care. It needs to be something that can be accomplished in part. For instance, you want to “make significant progress on” or “lay the foundation for” something rather than “complete” or “finish” it. With vague goals you can track your progress in whatever way you feel appropriate.

Pacing the Summer

Once your summer starts do not dive into work right away. You just finished a long and arduous year. You deserve a break. After all, summer is supposed to be about vacation. Take several weeks to “unwind” and “pull yourself together.” Make sure you get “grounded” before you actually attempt anything.

Once grounded, spread the work out over the summer. Do not set milestones. Milestones are only reminders of failure.