Summer. Sun. No school. And ABSOLUTELY no work. Well…for most students. 

At Mass Academy, junior year is a hard endeavor, but by the time D-term rolls around, we like to think things start looking up. That is until the summer internship bug starts going around. 

Suddenly, everyone starts hearing back from the summer programs they applied to in the turmoil of January. There are tears, there are celebrations, but more importantly, there’s a LOT of planning. So this term, I wanted to take a look at how different experiences with summer opportunities looked like for different juniors, and see what they thought about arguably the most important summer of their high school career. 

The Internship Maxxer

This is the one person you know that starts sending out cold-emails in the dark cold winter months of February, adamant on getting the perfect internship to highlight their resume this summer. But, this person is also one of the most successful in beating the crowds and getting the internship they want and deserve. An anonymous contributor explained that she wrote around 6 different emails to professors, using tools like Google Scholar and the UMass Labs website. In return, she received multiple responses and 2 interviews, plenty to choose from before she landed on a lab that uses organoids to treat neurological disease. 

All in all, starting early might not be a bad thing. Parnitha Karapakula, a junior at Mass Academy, enjoyed telling me about finding a match through thoughtful cold emails that strayed away from AI to have a personable tone, showing the professors her interest in the subject of neuroscience. 

The Summer Program Guru

Remember those times you went to summer camp, camping with your friends and having a good time? Now add STEM to the mix and you’re really having a party. That’s exactly what our Summer Program Guru’s do. They look for the best and the most niche summer programs to spend their time meeting new people, having new experiences, and learning new things all in the same amount of time. It’s basically school away from school, and I had a chance to talk to a student who’s excited to go.

This anonymous contributor was a multitasker, as he was also a coveted Internship Maxxer, but he was interested in telling me about applying to multiple summer programs throughout the year, to eventually land and commit to Northeastern’s Young Scholar’s Program. His piece of advice was to start early in the process, definitely don’t wait till last minute because those deadlines pass quickly. 

If anything, I would agree, for incoming juniors, map out your summer plans early and get essays done as quickly as possible. Maximizing your time is the best advantage you can give yourself before the craziness begins in C-term. 

The Lovely Volunteer 

At MAMS, we all have to complete 50 hours each year of volunteer hours, taking care to meet those 10 high needs hours as well. Many juniors and seniors get ahead of the game and use the summer to get the hours done without the pressure of school, allowing them to have an enjoyable experience and something neat to place on their resume. 

I had the chance to converse with one of these awesome individuals: they told me about their plans to volunteer at Community Harvest this summer, taking the time to go outside and get high needs hours. Community Harvest is a well loved volunteering spot in Grafton, MA, as many of us MAMS students enjoy going with friends and spending a morning in the fields or in the farmhouse, picking, washing, and packing fruits and veggies for local food pantries. This junior also told me about their hopes of seeing some incoming juniors who are getting early hours and talking to them before the start of the school year. 

Well, whether you are the volunteer, the intern, the summer program attendee, or even multitasking across categories, just know that summer is definitely a time to work, but also find time to relax. Inevitably, there will need to be time for things like college essays and applications, but before the heat of senior (or junior) year, take the long summer as time off to also do something you enjoy. If there’s one thing all of my sources told me, it’s that their summer activity is something that they enjoy doing, making it less of a job and more of a fun activity to escape the rigid confines of school for just three simple months.