Written by Sian Salazar | August 16, 2024
Edit: Find Part Two (on finances and budgeting) here!
This is my third summer of interning. Each summer has looked very different for me — each summer, I’ve moved further away from home. Each summer, I’ve become much more independent than before.
To recap my interning experience, the summer after my freshman year I worked remotely for a city council campaign. The campaign was based in LA, but I worked from the comfort of my home (back in the Bay Area, CA). I was lucky enough to not have to worry about the very basics of living. When you’re with your parents, and even during your first few years at USC, the very basics are taken care of for you. Living in the dorms, someone else cleans your bathroom and replenishes your toilet paper. You can go downstairs and walk a maximum of 5 minutes to the closest dining hall, where you can eat to your heart’s desire and not worry about how much the groceries are going to cost. Obviously, this has been the case for most of us as we grew up with our families. So a summer intern position might be most students’ very first real experience of living alone. I got my first real taste of that not this summer, but the next.
The summer after my sophomore year was my first real foray into independence. And I mean completely, 100% independence. During the school year I had roommates and the comfort of the USC dining hall. But during the summer, I was subleasing one room in a 4-bed apartment, and I was the only person living there. For the first time in my life, I was cooking 3 meals a day, 21 meals a week for myself (even if the USC apartment plan feels scarce, the ability to go downstairs and grab a to-go box from the dining hall is really unparalleled. I have to say that this summer, I missed it a lot). I remember my first night sleeping there alone: I’ll admit it, I was scared! I’d had nights alone before at home, when my mom was out of town for work, and I’d also had nights alone in the dorm, when I had come back early or left late for a break. But there was something about this first night sleeping alone that was different — maybe because I knew it would be one of many. I was a little paranoid that first night — so paranoid, in fact, that I barely got any sleep. It took me nearly a week before I could get adjusted to the complete silence of an empty apartment. And it probably took me about a month before I could get used to actually being alone most of the time. Sure, I had work, but ultimately that only takes up about 9 hours of a 24-hour day. I had to figure out what to do with my time.
Looking back, it’s very easy to recognize that this was a formative period of my life. But when I was in the actual moment, it never felt like that. At times I felt like I was struggling to find things to do, things to occupy myself with. During the school year, there’s always more that can be done: Homework, getting ahead on major assignments and large papers that are due months in advance, and more. But during the summer, it felt like a little bit of a vacuum. I ended up falling back into old hobbies (crocheting, a pandemic relic for me), and reading (which I try my best to keep up during the school year, but it’s always a struggle). It was amazing, and it is through these activities that I feel I was finally able to get comfortable being alone. Losing myself in the pages of a book, the dialogue of a good movie, or the rhythm of crocheting, helped me get acquainted with my own solitude, and turn it from a negative into one of the best experiences of my life.
And yet, despite all this, I was still very much within my comfort zone. At this point, the USC campus (and Los Angeles at large) was basically my second home. I knew the streets inside and out like the back of my hand. And what’s more important, I had a lot of friends, both my year and older, who were living in Los Angeles. Even though my apartment consisted of just me, myself, and I, I still had a social life for when I chose to participate in it.
Now, I’m halfway through the summer after my junior year. And for the first time in my life (yes, another first!), I’m living in a completely new city, completely by myself. All the parts of living alone that I love (and hate) from last summer are still here, but I don’t know anyone in this city. And that, above all else, has been my number-one challenge.
I’m located in Washington, D.C. for the summer — the capital of the beautiful United States of America. I’m living high-school me’s dream: Working in international affairs for the federal government, in a beautiful neighborhood (Georgetown!) with two ice-cream shops, six cafés, and one world-famous cupcake shop all within a 10-minute walk from my front door. I’ve been loving the independence that comes with being in a new city, beholden to nothing and no one. But sometimes, I have to admit, it can get lonely.
This is why, for one of the first times since my freshman year of college, I had to really put myself out there and learn to make friends again. I find that after that initial first-semester-of-college burst of making new friends, I’ve been able to relax and cruise my way through my time at USC. I meet people through other people or through classes — but I don’t really have to put myself out there in front of a bunch of strangers (which incredibly stressful to do!) the same way I had to during Welcome Week. I forgot what it was like to go up to a group of girls and hesitantly ask them what they were doing, whether they had plans, and introduce myself for the first time. And I found myself having to do that, rusty and out of practice, all over again.
Starting from scratch on a new social scene is hard. I found myself not wanting to go to all the intern mixers every government office in DC was throwing. After all, I had my friends at home, and they were just a FaceTime call away. It was honestly really easy, in the beginning, to retreat to the comfort of my room and talk to my friends from home or from USC, or even just read a book. But I knew that, as valuable as alone time and independence is, sometimes it’s more fun to explore a new city with someone else. So I started forcing myself to go to these mixers and forcing myself to talk to people (yes, even large groups — trust me, I was nervous about it, too). And I think it paid off! I’ve managed to successfully create a loose network of friends who I can call up if I want to go thrifting, hiking, paddle boarding, whatever. And after my first summer alone in LA, I know that I can also do these things on my own, too — and enjoy my own company the whole time.
In short, interning isn’t just about gaining work experience. It’s about tasting independence for the first time. It’s about navigating solitude and finding balance between work and leisure. There is so much you can learn about yourself as a person from a summer internship. I really want to emphasize this aspect of working and living alone. Of course, internships are invaluable as resume-boosters, but they are some of the most formative experiences you will ever have, and they will serve as your transition from the structure of college life and academia into the workforce.