Your Summer: Expectations vs. Reality

Ah, summer. Freedom at last. Now that you’re not tied down to the monotony of term time life, it’s time to finally enjoy yourself. Whether you’re spending it away from home trying to make some money, pad your resume, or rekindle old flames in your hometown, this summer is going to be the best one yet, right?

Wrong—so wrong. To help you all come to terms with your inevitable fate for the next few months, we’ve compiled a list of what’s coming your way.

The Unpaid Internship

Expectation: You remind yourself how fortunate you are to have landed this internship at a campaign/not-for-profit/charity. This is going to be so rewarding, you tell yourself. It doesn’t matter that you’re not getting paid because it’s going to be that good. You picture yourself giving back to the community and making real change in the public sector.

Reality: You spend every single day of the summer cursing the fools down at OCS for not giving you more funding. Living in a broom closet and consuming only free office food and 99 cent bags of chips all summer is far from ideal.

The Paid Internship

Expectation: Racks on racks on racks! Not only are you going to gain valuable work experience, but you’ll come out of it with money in the bank.

Reality: Between housing, food, transportation, and everything else you’ve been spending your precious money on this summer, you’ll barely have enough money to buy plane tickets back to Cambridge by August.

The Job Back Home

Expectation: This will be the high school summer you never had. You picture yourself reminiscing of old times with your high school buds and hitting up your favorite hometown party spots. Plus, you’ll be making money while enjoying the cozy bed and home cooking that you missed oh-so much.

Reality: You will get coffee with a high school friend once. Then you will resort to spending half of your free time with your family and half of your free time alone hate-watching season 4 of “Scandal” in your parents’ basement. (Speaking of parents, they will cook delicious hot food for you for a week, and then they will realize that you are, in fact, a fully-functioning adult who can cook yourself. After this realization, you will be eating microwave popcorn.)

The ‘Just Chilling’

Expectation: Working is so overrated. This summer, you’re going to work on your physical and mental well-being and come back to campus feeling better than anyone. You picture yourself running, doing yoga, eating healthy, regularly updating your Pinterest, and finally starting that blog you’ve wanted. It totally doesn’t matter that you have three months of unstructured free time.