In Search of the Summer

I can't believe how quickly the summer disappeared. Just a week or two ago, it was 110 degrees outside, school had just gotten underway, and I was still buzzing from the post Italy and China afterglow.

A round of midterms and a few football games later, it's autumn. It is still warm outside, but "pleasant" warm instead of "gates of hell" warm. Instead of enjoying the novelty of being in school again, I'm knee-deep in the stay up late, wake up early, can't put it down drudgery of actually being a student.

(Not that said drudgery isn't both extremely manageable and enjoyable, by the way.)

Despite the significant task at hand and the impending doom of finals, everyone here - me included - already seems amazingly fixated on next summer. Nearly all of my classmates are eagerly running the company presentation gauntlet in search of the ideal summer internship. Everyone shows up in suits and spends their lunch and dinner time listening to whatever it is J&J, GE, Deloitte, McKinsey, Lehman Brothers, etc. have to say. Some are going to 2 and 3 of these presentations a day. (Insanity if you ask me.)

I haven't attended any of these presentations (and probably won't), but that doesn't mean that I'm not hiking my trek toward summer internship Shangri La. I've got a number of irons in the fire and, excluding a Kenan-Flagler sponsored VC fellowship program, all of them are individually driven and outside of KFBS' career services machine.

It is mildly frustrating that I don't have the institutional support of my classmates.  However, I must admit that I enjoy the underdog/individual effort aspect of my internship search, as well as the freedom from the company presentation grind. Plus, my internship search is a great primer for the job search that I'll start this time next year.

As much as possible/appropriate, I'll update The Boggs Blog with my search progress and lessons learned.