Summer: There's No Right Answer

During the first few weeks of the fall 2015 semester at Middlebury College, I can guarantee that one question will be repeated over and over again: “What were you up to this summer?”

The College itself is asking this question. The Center for Careers and Internships’ webpage bears the purposeful headline “What Will Be Your Sum- mer Story?” The CCI’s “What did you do this summer?” survey was emailed to us days before classes began. Students are compelled to spend their summers in deliberate, impactful ways, often pursuing practical experiences to prepare them for life after Middlebury. I find it impressive and heartening to discover the wide variety of “Summer Stories” accrued by Middlebury students; but I also worry that our collective attitude towards these varying experiences can become needlessly competitive and one-dimensional.

Language employed by the CCI consistently reinforces the potential importance of career-oriented internship work. Traditionally lucrative fields (read: finance) are often given extra attention. Emails advertising upcoming Goldman Sachs information sessions have already arrived in our inboxes. As the CCI’s internship webpage reminds us, “According to a 2014 national survey, 95% of employers said candidate experience is a factor in hiring decisions. Completing one or two internships during your time at Middlebury will give you that valuable experience!”

This situation is not unique to Middlebury. Melissa Benca, director of career services at Marymount Manhattan College in New York, writes, “Internships have become key in today’s economy... Graduating students with paid or unpaid internships on their resume have a much better chance at landing a full-time position upon graduation."

It is all too easy to rank contrasting experiences. New York Times contributor Susan H. Greenberg writes, “Summer internships are the new Harvard: prestigious, costly, insanely competitive and the presumed key to all future success... ‘Everyone is applying for them!’ my daughter said... ‘There’s so much pressure. It would be really weird to say, ‘Oh, hey, I’ll just be working at camp again this summer.’” At elite colleges like Middlebury, it is common for students to seek prestigious work-related experiences. As New Republic contributor William Deresiewicz writes, “It is true that today’s young people appear to be more socially engaged than kids have been for several decades and that they are more apt to harbor creative or entrepreneurial impulses. But it is also true, at least at the most selective schools, that even if those aspirations make it out of college—a big “if”—they tend to be played out within the same narrow conception of what constitutes a valid life: affluence, credentials, prestige.”

Is such prestige what everyone wants? Certainly, many Middlebury students will seek careers in some of the most traditionally prestigious and lucrative fields. This trend is characteristic of many elite colleges. As Deresiewicz notes, “As of 2010, about a third of graduates went into financing or consulting at a number of top schools, including Harvard, Princeton and Cornell. Whole fields have disappeared from view... It’s considered glamorous to drop out of a selective college if you want to become the next Mark Zuckerberg, but ludicrous to stay in to become a social worker.” I certainly do not aim to disparage those who have sought experience in traditionally lucrative or popular fields. But Middlebury ought to be the sort of community that would never belittle the choices of that future social worker. I do want us to embrace the notion that there are a multiplicity of “good” ways to spend a summer, and, tangentially, a college career. I want the rhetoric surrounding “Summer Stories” to acknowledge the validity of both an internship with Deutsche Bank and volunteer work with a local hospice.

In describing her hope that new mothers can respect varying approaches to pregnancy and early parenting, Amy Poehler writes in her memoir Yes Please, “‘Good for her! Not for me.’ That is the motto women should constantly repeat over and over again. 'Good for her! Not for me.'" Though giving birth and planning a college summer are wildly different undertakings, there is a degree of universality to Poehler's message.  “Oh, Jane attended a Middlebury Language School? Good for her! Not for me. And John taught a summer enrichment program for middle school students? Good for him! Not for me. And Jack spent time at home with family? Good for him! Not for me. And Jill worked for Goldman Sachs? Good for her! Not for me.”

No one should have the value of his endeavors decided for him. It is possible to respect choices that do not resonate with you. Please do engage with those who seek opportunities you would not necessarily seek yourself. The ability to engage in robust, meaningful discussions with those whose aspirations differ from your own is part of the beauty of attending a small liberal arts college. But let us not conflate an experience’s marketability with its validity. Let each student’s “Summer Story” be her own.

And so I ask you this, Middlebury College: What were you up to this summer? And no matter what, good for you.