3 Reasons to Spend Your Summer Exploring a Passion
By Prabha Dublish, Undergraduate student at Babson College and Undergraduate Scholar at The Lewis Institute.
As a freshman in college, I had a hard time finding a summer internship that felt like a match for me. I found that the few positions I thought were interesting and included meaningful work required much more experience than I currently had. After spending a semester and a half in college with days filled with exciting meetings, events, and classes, I couldn’t stand the thought of spending the rest of my summer at home doing nothing productive. So instead, I chose to create a project to explore how entrepreneurship can be used to improve the livelihood of women living in poverty in India and California. I was able to witness first hand the power of entrepreneurship by empowering underprivileged women, thereby changing their communities as well. This experience was so powerful for me that I want to encourage all students struggling to find a valuable summer internship to create a project exploring a passion (because there are more benefits than you may think!):
Don’t Follow the Herd
Spend your summer doing an internship if the experience is going to be valuable. If not, do something different! You are going to spend the rest of your life working hard for long hours. If you are lucky, you will find a job related to your passion, but that doesn’t always happen. You also will rarely have such long breaks to explore and learn more about the world. So, if you can’t find an internship where you are going to grow, then do something unique and spend the time you have now to follow your interests.
You Never Know Where Your Journey Will Take You
I thought I was going to spend the summer witnessing how entrepreneurship empowers women who lack financial and community support. Instead, I learned so much more about what it takes to be an entrepreneur, the power of strong women, and what happens when communities come together. My unconventional summer experience sparked a nonprofit idea called Womentum that I am currently working on launching. I spent a summer learning something new and exploring my passions, and now the possibilities are endless.
It Can Help You Get a Job Later On
This year as a sophomore, there have been numerous times that a recruiter has been impressed that I have unconventional project experience on my resume. Extracurricular activities indicate that you actively sought out an experience to explore and learn more. I noticed that when I articulated what I gained from this experience and my motivations behind starting it, I was able to show that my project was just as valuable of an experience as an internship. It is absolutely possible to leverage your experience to impress companies; your project could be a model example of who you are.
So get inspired! Everyone has the ability to start a project. Think of a cool project that you can do abroad or maybe even in your hometown. If you need funding, talk to your class deans, other school staff, or companies who might be interested in funding your project. There’s always an opportunity waiting for you to seize it.
If you are interested in learning more about my experience or the benefits of an unconventional summer, as well as sharing a non-traditional summer internship you are creating, please reach out to me at pdublish1@babson.edu. Also, follow me on Linkedin to keep up with my posts. #StudentVoices #Babson