Early morning coffee stops for your 9 a.m. class. The long nights studying. The weekends going out with your friends. It’ll all change soon with summer break quickly approaching.
You’ve worked hard the past two semesters and deserve a break. But how will you spend it? Collegeboxes has put together a handful of summer break ideas from taking classes in a different country to getting a taste of the next chapter in your life.
What Should College Students do in the Summer?
Budget for Next Year
This tip can be very important for those coming off their freshman year. Living on your own for the first time is a lengthy learning process, especially financially. Apply what you learned for next year. Are you going to need a job over the summer? Do you need one during the next school year? Where are you living and how much will it cost? Building a budget for school will allow you to know if you need to apply for more scholarships and grants as well.
A good starting point is talking to your parents and/or an older sibling that might have recently been in school. Your parents might be helping you pay for certain parts of your schooling experience, which you should adjust your budget accordingly. Your sibling(s) can share their opinions on a budget based on their own encounters with money problems during their time in college. There are also a handful of apps that can guide you in creating a budget and allow you to track your spending.
Create a budget, or learn how to budget by talking to family & friends or look into available apps.
Get an Internship
Summer break is a great time for an internship because it allows you to focus solely on improving your work experience. Generally, most schools ask you to work more hours for a summer internship due to not having to have schoolwork. Working 40 hours a week might not sound that great during a summer break. However, it gets you familiar with the full-time job that you might desire after graduation. In most cases, you’ll also be getting a paycheck and earning a credit at the same time.
As wonderful as sitting at home and enjoying summer break on the couch is, an internship can open the doors to many opportunities. A summer internship allows you to possibly spend a summer in a new location, create a place to network for a future position, and add to your existing resume.
An internship allows you to spend a summer in a new location, create a place to network for a future position, and add to your existing resume.
Ready that Resume
Speaking of that resume, you should at least spend part of your summer revamping or even creating your first real resume. If you couldn’t land that internship you had hoped for, use it as motivation to better yourself and your resume. Most universities offer a career services department that helps with searching for jobs and building your resume. Over the summer, it wouldn’t hurt to contact the department and ask for feedback on your resume.
If you’ve never made a resume there are plenty of templates online that can help you through the process. It’s important to condense your resume as much as possible. While you might think your seventh-grade spelling bee championship was important, a hiring manager does not. A resume should be a one-page summary of your top skills and qualities.
You should at least spend part of your summer revamping or even creating your first real resume.
Make Your Social Media Safe for Work
Going viral seems fun in the moment. Until that Instagram post or TikTok video comes back to bite you later in life. When we’re young, we tend to only think about the present, not the future implications a decision might have. Your tweet might’ve been funny in your inner circle back in 2016, but it might rub your potential employer or graduate school the wrong way.
There are plenty of applications to help clean up your digital presence. A fresh start completely might not hurt either. We’ve seen plenty of athletes and celebrities have social media posts from their past emerge when their popularity spikes. Make sure something similar doesn’t happen to you. While you’re at it, make your LinkedIn look nice because that effort will be a return on investment for you.
Make your LinkedIn look nice because that effort will be a return on investment for you.
Study Abroad
We know that your textbooks have been returned and you’re ready to never read another discussion board. But have you ever thought about taking a study break near the Eiffel Towel or learning Spanish in Spain? Studying abroad gives you a completely different perspective on education and culture that a university in the United States can’t.
Instead of sitting at home on social media, going to another country can enhance your life in multiple ways. At one point in time, nearly every person finds interest in visiting another country. This might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you to travel like this. It also allows you to build off this opportunity. Studying abroad can build your networking for a career, while also boosting your resume because you’ve possibly become bilingual and shown that can adapt in a new environment as well. That impresses people in your job interview, even if you were only eating gelato in Rome.
Studying abroad gives you a completely different perspective on education and culture.
What to do with Dorm Stuff over Summer?
While you’re away immersing yourself in a new place, what will happen to all your items? Collegeboxes can help. We offer a wide range of services including study abroad storage and shipping. Your belongings can be picked up from your school prior to a study abroad program to be stored while you are away or shipped to your home or world-wide. You can fill out an international shipping quote form and we will contact you within 24 hours with a shipping quote.
Collegeboxes, the #1 student storage and shipping provider, also offers full-service storage & shipping to students at 350-plus colleges for your moving needs. Reading this during the later months of the year? If so, check out our tips for Things to Do Over Winter Break as a College Student.