So I Have An Internship... Now What?

Ahh, summer vacation. The greatest 3.5 months of the year, right? School's out, the weather's nice - this is what we've all been waiting for all of last summer, right? Ehh, not in every case.

I've just finished my junior year and I have an internship, albeit part-time, at an advertising agency. This is what I wanted. This was the plan.

I've spent the last nine summers of my life at a sleep away camp. I lived for the summers. I was a camper there for 4 years, a waiter, and then "worked" there as staff for the last four summers. I surround the word worked with quotation marks because I believe in order to technically be working, you in turn get paid for the work. Technically some small sum of money did exchange hands in my favor, but the amount could hardly be deemed fair payment for my services.

Besides, most if not all of the money that I was to be paid over the summers were spent primarily on booze at Legends, the crappy hole-in-the-wall bar up by Camp Monroe. But it was our crappy hole-in-the-wall bar, and it was amazing. They served us, despite the fact that more of us were under 21 than over.

Spending the past nine summers away from home, I cut a lot of ties around here on Long Island. And now, for the first time since 1998, I'll be spending the entire summer on Long Island.

Before I even started college, I planned to return to Monroe up until last summer - figuring I wouldn't really need an internship until the summer after my Junior year of college. So now, Junior year has come and gone, and despite unnecessarily sweating out the internship that I unknowingly had ever since mid-March, I can breath a sigh of relief. I am not a sorry excuse waste-of-life college bum.

I am an intern.

Again, a part-time intern. Nonetheless, I have an internship at an advertising agency. Pretty legit, eh?

For two days a week until my Senior year starts up at good ol' Syracuse University, I'll be learning the crafts of my trade that'll hopefully help land me a job in 12 months, that hopefully won't make me want to pluck my eyeballs out with a fork.

So the other five days a week... well, let's just say that so far my summer has been a tad more dormant than I'd imagined. And although I'm starting my search much later than I should have, it is time...

I need a summer job.

I already have the internship that'll do something for my eventual career... That's the plan, at least - otherwise it's "Hello, Devry!" (No that's not funny, that's scary.) But now I really need to make some money. Otherwise, there's no reason I couldn't return to Camp - and that can't happen.

Thank God the list of respectable summer jobs for college students is endless!! Oh wait, no - that's an entirely false statement. So now it is the beginning of June, and I have been home for almost an entire month. In no specific order, it's time to examine possible summer job opportunities.

Waiter: In theory I wouldn't mind doing this. I enjoy people, so long as they don't suck. Which can be taken as both a universal and/or contradictory statement. But I mean it, I'm a people person. I enjoy the atmosphere of a lively restaurant chain more than most, probably. But when it comes to people who suck, and reminder, I live on Long Island, so like... a carefully calculated 62% of people here fall in to that category. Also, although it was an entirely different set-up, my summer spent as a waiter in the sleep away camp setting was anything but a success. I can be clumsy at times, and that's putting it politely. So maybe that experience will drive me away from doing that.

Bartender: I've always wanted to be a bartender. I think it would be so cool to work at a buzzing local bar, but again: Long Island. Guidos, bitchy japs driving around on their daddy's money and all around shitty people ain't my bag, baby. Plus, I'd have to spend $2-300 getting my bartender's license, and then honestly... who wants to hire an unexperienced 20-year-old male as a bartender? I could get a job if I had long blonde hair and a nice rack, or experience behind a bar, either one really. But realistically, no. Plus, the whole clumsy factor.

Temp Agency: I really wanted to steer away from this. Not wanting to do secretarial bullshit work is the reason why I became an advertising major - in hopes that I'd be able to something creative with my life and actually enjoy getting up and going to work in the mornings. Although this is the most realistic, probable and possibly profitable choice, I'll save this one for later.

Fast-food: All I can think of is my days working at Marshall's my senior year of high school. Making minimum wage and having to accept customers talk to you like you're a complete idiot isn't as glamorous as it sounds. Hey, Lady! You're the one spending 3 nights a week at Marshall's carefully setting up a scheme to swap SALE stickers on other merchandise, all so you can save $4.99 on a shitty shirt. Then when you get caught, because it's pretty easy to tell, I'm forced to receive and accept your tongue-lashing because I'm working behind the counter? I was 17, who's gonna give a high school kid, no matter how smart they are, a real job? Anyway, I'd rather not relive those minimum wage memories so I can actually utter the words "Would you like fries with that?" to the scum I went to high school with. I'll pass.

The Internet is your friend: I could sell shit online, or find those abstract, odd, yet reliable ways to make money online doing different things (no not porn, don't worry, even I wouldn't wanna see that). I recently came across a site where I can make money for sending in my ideas or writings. But if I'm gonna write something, it's not gonna be so I can sign my rights away and make $100 while this company turns it into a book. Maybe I can stumble across focus groups or lend my body to science experiments. One friend, who shall remain nameless, came across an ad on Craigslist that they responded to. Said person got paid $500 to go over to some old man's house and pee on him as the old guy laid in a bathtub. I don't think I'll be going in that route.

Jones Beach: I just thought of working concerts at Jones Beach. I have cousins that did it years ago, and they hated it. But I'd like to think I wouldn't mind it all so much. I'd get to (sort of) hear (yet definitely not see) concerts (from bands that I will most likely not want to listen to at all). Maybe not work concerts, but doing something else at the beach. Or some other beach. A cabana boy? I could definitely make some coinage that way.

I'm not sure how big the market is out there for employers with fun summer job opportunities still looking, specifically for people who can work only Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. I was kind of hoping writing this would help me figure out what I'll do, but really I'm no closer than I was when I started.

I thought I'd be able to pass out floating around in my pool, listening to some good tunes all summer. Isn't there any way I can get paid for that?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I'm also actually hoping for a surgery this summer that would in effect put a halt to my internship and whatever job I do or do not land. So I'm sure by the time I figure out how I'm going to make my millions over the next few months, Surgery #5 of my life would be more than a minor roadblock. Ain't doctors fun?