Searching for a job or internship involves a lot of unknowns. It necessitates waiting for weeks or months for an answer, second-guessing oneself, and vacillating between one’s options. This Winter break, I entered uncharted territory and began searching for my first-ever internship.

When I hear the word “internship,” I either think of fiercely bright and motivated pre-med students working long hours in high-pressure situations for no pay, or I think of an unsure student who somehow ended up in a drab, dimly lit office, monotonously filing papers and answering annoying phone calls. I don’t know where I got these preconceived notions, but I do know that I was hoping for was something a bit different. Was I expecting to land the internship of my dreams that would leave me with a new sense of wonder and awe towards the world? Definitely not. But was I hoping for something that would give me a clearer sense of what sort of career I might want to go into, while also remaining moderately interesting and informative? Absolutely.

When a few google searches didn’t look super promising, I turned to some more specific websites that focus on job and internship searches such as Idealist.org, internships.com, and handshake. Even though you can tailor the results to certain geographic areas or career types, I still found it difficult to find internships that appealed to me and that I was also somewhat qualified for.

I spent hours perusing the web, copying and pasting names of organizations into an online document, so I could have a compiled list of possible positions to apply to. Once I had a list of about 10 internships that ranged from topics I was vaguely interested in, to ones that I was very passionate about, I decided to pick one, and begin an application.

Somehow the internship that I ended up finding the most intriguing was also the one with the most extensive application process. Normally this would have discouraged me, but since it was break and I had a ton of free time, I decided to give it a shot. The application consisted of a resume, two references, a 5-6 page write-up, and a lengthy set of questions relating to personal demographics.

While there are so many other types of internships I could have applied for, I decided to seek out ones that were social-justice based. This past election and the current state of our nation has left me feeling defeated, sad, and angry all at once. Thus, I felt like the most meaningful way to spend my summer would be to work for some sort of organization that does uplifting and important work that challenges the morals and precedents set by our current government. Even though I have only applied for one internship, I feel good knowing that I sought out an internship that felt right to me. I’m lucky that I’m not pre-med, pre-vet, or anything of the sorts, so I was afforded a lot of leniency in my search.

While I am definitely nervous that all my plans will fail, and I won’t secure my top choice internship, let alone any internship, I keep trying to remind myself that I am only a Sophomore, and I have the rest of my life to worry about settling into a career path. Even if the internship I end up acquiring turns out to be completely unrelated to whatever field I end up going into, I will still inevitably gain skills that will help me in the professional world. Plus, nothing is really set in stone: I can make a decision about what I want to do this summer, and then I can always make another decision. I can have a plan A, and I can have a plan B, C, D, and E if necessary. And after three months of interning, I can have the comfort of knowing that I will return to sunny Scripps, with a new sense of direction and purpose, ready to begin working on those applications for summer 2018.