You have fought and fought for this. You’ve done your readings, written your essays, and taken your examinations. Now, you’re finally here. After a long, stressful year, it is finally time to unwind. It’s summer!
Planning your summer trip was one of your go-to escapist mechanisms during exam season. Naturally, you’ve already booked your flight; the Ryanair website was just as ever-present on your laptop as the endless readings and research tabs. After much struggle, your summer outfits are wrestled and crammed into the minimal luggage space allowed by your chosen airline. As your holiday grows closer, you can feel your excitement brewing. You are so close! Relaxation awaits!
Now, you’re here! Your planned excursions—or spontaneous exploring, whatever works!—are a bus (or very expensive taxi) ride away.
Suddenly, you get a notification which shatters that fantasy into a dozen pieces: your summer applications are due. If you are going to be working next year, you need to apply for any future positions now, since application deadlines are just around the corner. It’s not even just one job or internship either. Deadlines for any coveted roles often overlap, and since everything is so competitive, you need to draft your application, edit it, and submit it—all as soon as possible, several times over. To make matters worse, you forgot to pack your laptop. What now?
There is a well-known Arabic saying. Roughly translated, it means: “necessity provides its own rules.” That is to say, when it comes to summer applications, the necessity of quickly submitting them means all bets are off. Suddenly, while waiting for your sightseeing bus to arrive, you’re frantically typing on your phone, drafting and editing the application with the closest deadline. With each application, this ill-advised, frustrating cycle continues.
“Summer applications are time-consuming, stressful, and general killjoys”
Sadly, the aforementioned scenario is the reality for many university students. Summer applications are time-consuming, stressful, and general killjoys. Instead of exploring new places and enjoying our long-awaited holiday, we are forced to incorporate applications into our valuable free time. While this does not mean we entirely miss out on our vacations, it can occasionally make them less enjoyable, as our applications grab our attention away from all the attractions we had been hoping to see.
All this for the opportunity to work or intern come September; one which is not even guaranteed. Often, students will spend time applying for several positions, only to end up with no replies. Not only that, but also, after spending time on applications for future positions, many students jump into the deep end right after their vacations, working summer jobs before the academic year begins. Depending on how many roles they have in mind, some even apply for positions while on vacation, only to keep applying for others once they are back from their holidays and working during the summer.
The constant LinkedIn Job Alerts, Google Careers, and Trinity Careers Service notifications—while helpful in theory—can often be overwhelming. This, coupled with your peers posting about their various distinguished achievements, can prompt you to overwork yourself in a desperate attempt to catch up. You know what they say: “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Having so many tasks that need to be done can immensely deplete your energy, especially since you would probably rather pass the time spent on these applications doing things which replenish that energy. But alas, it’s a necessary evil, if only to have a salary and something to put on your CV come September.
Take it from me, a young woman who, just last month, had to face the prospect of applying for a position at College while moving. I feel the need to clarify that this does not mean the long process of moving, which usually takes place over time, but rather, literally, at its final stage, with movers in the house. In my defence, I really did try to get it done earlier, but things were so busy I did not get the chance to, especially since I had applied to other positions as well. Having woken up extra early (that is, 8am—practically sunrise for a night owl such as myself), I started filling out the remaining bits of my application, as I had quickly filled out my personal information the previous day. To my short-lived relief, I got everything done five minutes before the deadline. Here’s where it all went sideways: I had saved a copy of the application on my desktop, but in the chaos of everything that was happening, along with the questionable decision-making undoubtedly induced by my sleep-deprivation, I deleted it, as the format looked wrong. As I was saving another copy, I got an error message, and the work of the past couple of hours disappeared. I can safely say that this was one of the most frustrating situations of my summer. But it’s okay! I’ve gotten over it now, mostly.
So, what’s a poor, overworked university student to do? No, for real, I am actually asking this question. It’s not rhetorical.
I mean … I guess all we really can do is prioritise certain tasks. Take things day by day. To prevent burnout, we need to make a conscious effort to avoid working ourselves too hard. When attempting to balance any work with downtime, organisation is key. I’m not necessarily recommending that you document everything in a day-to-day planner; although, if that works for you, then by all means, go for it! If, like me, you are not the best at keeping track of every little detail, then there’s another system you could follow. I’m a strong believer in organised chaos. Whether it’s keeping an Excel sheet of the main deadlines handy, or just jotting stuff down on your Notes app, a general reminder of when important applications are due is always helpful. That being said, you need to know your limits. We all know what we are capable of, so when we feel our energy levels sinking, it is important to take advantage of our time off and take a break.
Summer applications are not for the weak. To secure your future prospects without compromising your present enjoyment, certain measures, like the ones mentioned above, need to be taken to ensure you’re not too disorganised. The important thing to remember is that you’re likely not the only one stressing over these applications. They are a tedious rite of passage, but as long as we make sure to create a certain balance between our downtime and various responsibilities, we should get by okay.
