Rejecting the pressure to intern

As a journalism student (or for anyone with a professional/skills-based degree), it’s hard not to feel pressure to get an internship or job at a professional publication, site, or station during the summer months. It’s a never-ending cycle of the more places you write, the better the clips you have, the more ~diverse~ of an employee you will be, and the potential of getting a great job after graduation, maybe even at your former intern stomping grounds.

And you know those people who are brilliant, who raise the bar in their student newspaper’s quality, who score the good gigs, who get the scholarships, who professionals think of when they are feeling optimistic about the future of the field. Those people deserve opportunities, especially the big ones: they earned them. Having that internship on a resume feels like a sign you gave your all in college, and the pros outside of academia also gave their approval of your talents.

But then there are some of us who haven’t been able to get an internship for two years, whose freelance pitches to interested publications get rejected every time, and who can’t help feeling inadequate from their seemingly very talented peers because someone professional isn’t giving them a chance for a few months. That’s been my story for two years now, despite turning out some of the best work I have ever done during this time, and not having something to show for it.

It’s really hard to come to terms with the fact that I won’t be doing anything professional for the second summer in a row. This isn’t for any personal reasons. It’s all based on the fact that the message of having to work hard and be as talented as possible and go places and do things and constantly build myself up for a career is what is engrained. Honestly, I cried really hard when I made the decision to stay in Bloomington and work over the summer. It’s a massive schema shift from constantly being told what you need to do, or what all the people you want to be like may have (or not) done in order to get where they are. It felt at first that I had given up on everything I wanted, that I was letting everyone I knew down by not succeeding constantly, and that any chance I ever had of reaching my goals was either pushed back or completely diminished.

That’s absolute bullshit. How can I even be the best possible student/journalist/future law student/daughter/girlfriend/sister/friend/person if I can’t just take the time I won’t have in a few years to do whatever I want?

This is a serious mental health strain, because it is another way for students to measure up to one another. How good is your GPA? Who can you get to write you a letter of recommendation? How much money have you been given to pay off your tuition?

This isn’t to say internships are bogus, or that really talented students and those who can’t score an internship are different, or better/worse. There is no point in that discussion, and has nothing empirical to it. Be glad for people’s successes, and don’t feel bad when you can’t earn success at the same time or at the same rate.

What it is to say is that it is completely OK not intern. Or not take classes over the summer because you don’t want to feel like you are wasting your time (sadly, this was my biggest justification for studying abroad over last summer). Summer vacations exist for a reason: to take a break from school.

Make actual money to pay off school instead of slaving for a place that wants you to do free work for two months. Read all the books and old issues of Nylon or The New Yorker you didn’t get to read during the school year because you were busting your ass. Try that exercise you have wanted to. Go the doctor if you need to. Snuggle with your family. Whatever. You’re allowed to just take care of you for two months. You’re allowed to take a break from school. You’re allowed to refresh yourself so you can be a better you. And don’t feel like you’re a weaker person for choosing that option, because really, who is going to say they won’t hire you in twenty years because you took 2.5 months of rest and relaxation when you were in your early 20s? Please.