INTERNSHIPS! RESUMES! MILLENNIAL-LIFE CRISIS! RATRACE! BUZZWORDS!
I hope everyone is having a great summer so far. My name is Kit and I’m a (soon to be) sophomore at Babson this coming Fall. Prior to Freshman year I spent 2 years in the Air Force, where I learnt many important life lessons. For example, how to look busy when you’re not. Over the coming weeks, I hope to share some of my hard-earned wisdom through this blog, because life is too short to make every mistake yourself.
I’m currently interning at MassChallenge as an operations intern and wanted to touch on the whole ‘I have no idea what to do with my life but everyone seems to be hustling and getting ahead with internships oh dear it’s senior year and now I’m jobless’. While an exaggeration, this feeling of helpless fatalism is something we have all experienced at some point in our lives. Let’s do something about that.
First off, you are not everyone so why do you care what other people are doing? Just do you. Unless you have exactly the same goals as John Smith, you really shouldn’t be doing the same things he is. This brings me to the first step of getting your stuff together – what are your goals? No, I don’t care if you want a 4.0 GPA. I mean life goals – do you want a family? Do you want a life of travelling? Maybe you want to move to a quiet town in the countryside? Perhaps you want to hustle till you have trouble counting the commas in your bank account? Whatever the case, the first thing you need do is to think about where you want to be. People always talk about ‘crossing the bridge when you get to it’ but how can you make decisions if you don’t know where you are going? Some of you may roll your eyes and protest ‘but Kit, I want to live in the moment, carpe diem’. And you can do that – but see how you wouldn’t know that unless you went through the process? So while you waste away the summer, take some time to think of the life you want to live.
Make a mental note.
Write it down.
Talk about it.
Do whatever you need to do to be 70% sure that 5, 10, 15 years from now you won’t be living a life you hate. How? Well, I’m pretty sure you know what you like and dislike so I recommend starting there – put on your adult pants for a while. Why 70% and not 100%? Firstly, 100% is impossible – if you are a clairvoyant, drop out of Babson and start trading. Secondly, the possibility of failure makes life more interesting.
Stay tuned as I piece your life together in the coming weeks. Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions at jtan8@babson.edu.
Best,
Kit