Back to school
For a day at least
I had the chance to talk to five college sophomores this week, and they were both younger than I expected and also way ahead of where I was at that point in my life. I guess that shouldn’t be surprising with a self-selecting group that’s spending the end of their winter break networking with alumni.
When I was a sophomore, I had recently declared an English major after conferring with a Jesuit professor who mostly told jokes about drinking vodka at the college bar interspersed with a few ideas about the themes of American literature. Post-college prospects were on the radar but not in any great detail.
I’ve wondered since if there was more I could have done to get a leg up on the competition in those days, something like this program, but I’ve never regretted the classes I took or the people I spent my time with. I think I got lucky, but I also think I made the right friends and had the right conversations that kept me moving in enough of the right direction.
At the end of our hour together, these kids asked the same questions we all had in those days. What kind of internships did you have? How did you find them? What should I be doing to land one?
Before asking about internships, the same student was telling me that she started a YouTube channel about a year ago and has found a lot of joy in growing it to almost 1000 subscribers. I told her that it doesn’t matter what else she applies to. Maybe she’ll find something that looks great on a resume, but she’s already got the internship right there. She’s found something interesting enough to work on on top of her other obligations. She’s set goals. She’s experimented with new topics and equipment to reach more people.
That’s the story I’d want to hear. How you kept that dream alive while balancing everything else that had to happen. How you make time for the rest of it. That’s how I know you’ll be a good teammate and friend. That’s why I’d want to hire you.
Maybe what I really meant is that there’s only so much time left before the expectations of college turn into the expectations of adulthood and career and parenthood. Everyone will tell you that you should do X, followed by Y, and reinforced by Z, but I wish more people had told me to enjoy the blank slate. That uncertainty can be productive. To fuck up while it’s still a learning experience. To truly believe you can do or be anything. To do it.
It’s a critical time, and our impulse, as usual, is to shorten it so we can get to the next thing, but what if we were just there, in it, more patient for the rest to unfold.