Summer Internshits

Eagerly awaiting the glory that is a hall dinner one evening, I overhear a girl talking about her several interviews for internships this summer. ‘An internship?’ I think to myself. Are we not in first year? Is this not a little on the early side? I was a little alarmed, to say the least.

What even is an internship? It’s one of those words St Andrews students drop in and out of conversation in a typical blasé fashion. I then nod along and pretend I have a clue what their talking about. As far as I can gather it’s just your average two weeks work experience placement (done when you’re fifteen in typical English high schools) dragged cruelly out over a long, long summer, potentially so boring that you start finding even the most menial of jobs interesting. Nothing like that crazy summer story about that one time when you reorganised the filing cabinet in alphabetical order!!!!!. Thug lyf chose you, didn’t it. 

Overqualified and underpaid, why bother signing yourself up for a summer of being a glorified tea and coffee maker? Or what’s even more offensive, you grabbing their coffee order from some overly friendly Starbucks barista down the road who you don’t feel comfortable knowing your name. Not even trusted with the responsibility of making a good brew. Rude. 

Maybe I’m just a little jell that my summer involves an 11-7 job as a cashier in my local theme park. It may be a little awkward that when you have spent your summer updating your C.V and improving your job prospects I’ve just put on a lot of weight because I got 50% off park doughnuts, milkshakes, chips, burgers, hot dogs, candy floss etc. However, I firmly believe that summers should be about soaking up the warmth in foreign countries or your local beaches before returning to not-so-sunny Scotland. Summers are for finishing TV marathons, crappy club nights with your mates or travelling the world in Toms and Ali Baba trousers in hope of ‘finding yourself’. Once working, we’ll only be entitled to a pitiful five-six weeks of holiday per year. Gone are the beautiful FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS of uninterrupted, degree free heaven. That’s right. The struggle is so real. 

Now friends, whilst yes, I can see why you’d spend your summers working hard to get ahead, in the hope of having that perfect life in the big city, strutting around in your Manolo’s with your three best gal pals by your side (someone says successful, I think Carrie Bradshaw. Success comes hand in hand with lots of shoes). However, I think that just maybe, and this is tough for us here at St Andrews, we shouldn’t always focus on the future and just for a few summers concentrate on what you want to do now. Do you REALLY want to do an internship? Look deep past the promise of shoes. No? Then why the hell do one? Have a summer that’s worth singing about. May it be like the one in ’69.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.