“You’re not doing a three-month college academic intensive?”
“What else would you even do over the summer? A regular summer camp?”
“That’s such a waste of time. How are you gonna get into college?”
In the past, summer was a time to relax: sleeping in, going to the beach, hanging out with friends, and forgetting about deadlines and grades. However, for many students today, summer no longer feels like rest, and the three months of break seem to fuse with the nine months of school into a never-ending cycle. Summer has become another season of pressure, productivity, and competition.
Indeed, internships, summer classes, jobs, volunteer work, research programs, and leadership opportunities are valuable; they provide early experience and opportunities to explore potential careers and interests. The problem is not that these opportunities exist or that people are pursuing them. The problem is that today, they feel increasingly expected rather than optional. I believe this inflation in expectations for summer work has grown alongside other expectations. Students today need higher grades, more extracurriculars, designated college counselors, more qualifications, more recommendations, and a way to stand out from the millions of other students applying for the same spot at a school, job, or program.
I conducted a survey regarding Milton students’ experiences with pressure to make their summers “impressive,” and of the 100 responses, the results were decently conclusive. Over 72% said they feel at least some pressure to make their summers impressive, with 32.6% reporting strong anxiety. Only 8.4% said they don’t feel the obligation at all. While some students pointed to parents or friends, "college admissions" and "themselves" were the two most common sources of pressure, each at 32.6%.
This raising of the bar doesn’t just apply to students: the cost of living in the United States has risen by over 70% since 2000. Not only has the hurdle to succeed academically increased, but so have the fundamental financial requirements shaping an ordinary adult life. Moreover, a broader societal impression that falling behind—academically, economically, or professionally—has become easier than before fuels pressure on students and adults.
This overall increase in expectations leads some students, especially in a rigorous environment like Milton, to believe that without a 4.0 and numerous summer internships, students will experience difficulty in getting accepted to a top college. Unfortunately, to some extent, this difficulty is the truth; while individuals may struggle to resist this pressure, we still should examine whether students are experiencing unnecessary stress at a young age.
Though 65% of students credited internal pressure, I have compared myself to classmates posting internship announcements or program acceptances online and have wondered whether I am falling behind. Social media only intensifies this mindset, as it does with many other problems and insecurities, by overstating reality. Platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn can sometimes turn summer into a public performance. Students see others posting about prestigious programs or impressive accomplishments, often without seeing the stress or exhaustion behind them. As a result, even students who genuinely want rest can feel pressure to constantly achieve more because social media often shows only people who are ahead of them and thus makes forgetting that someone else may be looking up to them in the same way very easy.
However, with equal gravity, students internalize much of the pressure they feel. Even if no one directly tells a student how they must spend their summer, many feel intrinsically guilty if they are not constantly productive.
Ironically, many students recognize this imbalance. When asked about what students ideally should use summer for, only 7.4% of students believed it should mainly be used to “get ahead.” Meanwhile, 29.5% said summer should be for resting, and 63.2% chose a mix of both. These statistics suggest that while most students clearly understand that balance matters, they often struggle to practice that balance in reality.
Whether you have an internship, a camp, a job, or nothing at all lined up for this summer, I invite you to consider taking an actual break. And that break doesn’t mean you should lie on your couch all day, scroll endlessly, or avoid being productive in any capacity; it just means trying something new. Spend time outside, try a new hobby, cook something, or play a sport: what matters is not what you do, but that you do it for the sake of trying, not just to add it to a list of extracurriculars. So, before you think about how an activity would look on your application or your LinkedIn profile, think about whether you’d actually enjoy it.