 Alright, now a question that I get asked more often than not in my DMs is what do I do during the summer? How do I get an internship? How do I find a job? What can I do to best prepare myself for colleges? And as most of you guys know with the recent college admissions process in the past few years, it's getting harder and harder to not only get into the Ivy League schools, but just to get into any kind of prestigious school. Now the misconception is if you're not valedictorian, if you don't have a 4.0 GPA, if you didn't learn how to cure cancer or do research lab work every summer with a Harvard TA, then you're not going to get into Harvard or whatever. But to be honest, that's actually kind of not true because there are so many opportunities that kids can do during the summer to prepare themselves to do well in the college applications process. And not only that, aside from having it look good on your resume or having it help you stand out in the college applications process, doing something over the summer will just allow you to get out of your house, do something productive and at the end of the day that can help you find your passion, see what you enjoy doing, whether it is research or working at Starbucks or whatever it is. So today I'm just going to dive into a list of things that are going to be super helpful and beneficial when it comes to finding things to do during the summer. Alright, so first up is obviously kind of the most important and most prestigious are your internships, your research opportunities, your shadowing, interning or whatever it is. When it comes to finding opportunities like this, the biggest thing is you have to do research. If you're not willing to spend the time to look online, do a quick Google search of local internships around me, then you can't complain about sitting on your ass at home watching Netflix all day. Now something I don't think a lot of kids realize is somebody local businesses and organizations and companies need interns over the summer, there's a lot of stuff to be done in a corporation that can be handled by the employees. So that's why they reach out to interns. Now most of these are obviously going to be college age interns, but at the same time there are tons of opportunities for high school students to start getting their feet wet. So one of my friends who is now at Rice was actually doing, you know, research work and lab assisting at a local hospital. It was a 30 minute drive for him. He went a few days a week and he learned so much. It looked great on his applications and ultimately that did help him get into Rice because it did help him stand out amongst the thousands of other applicants who were just working summer jobs. So look locally and either visit email or call. And I'm saying that in that order because I think that's the most effective. Visiting in person is obviously going to get you the most straight up answer, whether they have internship spots or not, whether they're looking for someone or not. And then emailing is obviously a more formal way to go about it, but at the same time, you don't know when you're going to hear and then calling, they're just going to tell you to send an email. Now if you are fortunate enough to receive any kind of summer internship or shadowing or anything like that, make sure you take it seriously because these are real employees and workers in the real world like actually doing their jobs, which will literally cost them like thousands of dollars. So being an intern isn't just doing busy work all the time or getting coffee. It's actually you have to maintain budgets, do expenses, accounting, things that are going to be boring, but are important for that company. So don't screw it up because there are hundreds of other kids who would kill to have the opportunity. So for example, my younger brother, he's going into his senior year now, which is crazy, but he's spending this month shadowing a doctor that he met through our church organization and they put him in contact with another doctor. But now, you know, a few times a week, he goes in, he's wearing scrubs. He's doing intern work. He's actually shadowing during surgeries, like seeing how they do, you know, knee and hip replacements and things like that. And this dude's in 17 now. And he says there are two other interns in their college age, which is obviously like really impressive for him to have gotten that at such a young age. So another thing is obviously like reach out to any local friends or family you have in the business, see if they can get help. You get a foot in the door if they know a person of a person or a friend of a friend using your local networking is going to be the most effective and fastest way for you to find a good internship. Now, on top of that, something like a summer program is also super beneficial and also really looks great. So going into my junior year, I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship with National Geographic student expeditions to go to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands for two weeks doing photography and videography. You know, that was such a great time, such a great experience. I learned a lot and it was all paid for. They played paid for my flights, the food, the housing and everything. So all that literally took was me and my mom sitting down doing some research about things to do over the summer related to photography and boom, that instantly popped up. We applied some of the documents and essay recommendation letters. And a few months later, I got a call saying that I was accepted. It was a huge honor. And without that, I really I genuinely truly think that that specific summer program helped me get into the universities that I did because it showed that I was passionate about photography and that I took the time to spend my summer doing that, which not a lot of kids can say. And on top of that, it was with National Geographic, which obviously has so much clout. Crazy thing is my brother actually got the same scholarship to do health care research in Peru. So he's going in a few in a week, actually. And then after that, when he gets back, he got another scholarship with New York Times to go to the Silicon Valley and do and tour, you know, a bunch of companies out there. And once again, all done with a little bit of research, a little bit of time crafting your application, getting a recommendation letter, and he's about to have the craziest summer of his life. OK, now the third thing is get a job. Now, I can't emphasize enough how important this is, especially if you are a high school student, because at this point, you're 17, 18, about to be an adult, about to be going to college, about to be in the real world. And if you're not paying for your own stuff, you have to find a way to finance that there's no way that you can continue to rely on your parents to pay for everything, whether it's eating out with your friends or going shopping or little things like just getting bubble tea as great as it is to have your parents as a financial backup. They shouldn't be the only means of you paying for your own stuff. If you continue to rely on them as you grow older, you're going to be in a really, really tough situation when you find out you have to start paying for bills, paying your taxes, real adult stuff that if you're not prepared and don't start planning ahead and being financially responsible at this early age, it's going to come back and bite you in the butt. So get a job, find something local, whether it's, you know, being a busboy, fast food restaurant, car hopping, at Sonic, because during the summer, if you have nothing else to do, three months is a lot of time. If you're working eight hours a day, five days a week, that's some serious income to be made. And then you save that up over the summer. Then that's just spending money for you to use during your college so you can focus on your schools and not having to worry about getting a job, doing student studies or anything like that. That's a whole another video about budgeting for college that I will make in the future. So for now, just please try and get a job. I think that you learn a lot from it. Personally, I didn't have a traditional job because I was a freelance photographer and filmmaker. So I was doing senior shoots and family shoots over the summer. And that was a really great way for me to make a super easy income doing something I loved. OK, now, number four is traveling. I can't emphasize how important and beneficial traveling is, not only to your well-being, but just so you're more culturally aware of the world. There are so many places that people don't get to see. And I'm taking the time and money to travel around the world or even just around the country is so beneficial. The returns on your investment are tenfold because I read this tweet a few days ago. It said, travel, your money will return, your time will not. And that's literally so true because as you grow older, you're going to start having a job, you're going to start having a family and kids and the time for you to travel by yourself and be young and be carefree is running out. So take the summer, take this time to plan a trip with your friends or your family, pitch it as this is a great way for the family to bond. We can go to Spain, we can go to France, we can go to London. We can go to Mexico if you want to travel close, just opening your eyes to what's out there. And if you are fortunate enough to be multilingual, then practicing that in that country is just a really great way to spend your summer. Another thing you can do is road trips. I love road trips. So I'm from Dallas and when I was in high school, I used to love doing road trips with my friends. We would go to Oklahoma, we'd go to Austin, we'd go to San Antonio. We would just drive around and take a day trip to these spots because there are so many things to do in getting out of your local hometown that it's just a great way to spend a few days or a weekend really doesn't cost much. Have all your friends pitch in a little bit for gas, bring food if you don't want to pay for it, go out for dinner and then find a place to air B&B. I think some of my best memories in high school was one of my friends had a house near Austin, so we would go down for the weekend, we'd just hang out, float on the river and it wasn't hard to plan at all. All right, so the fifth thing you can do in the summer is explore. Now, since you are out of school, we have plenty of time on your hands. There should be no excuses for you not to be doing something every single day of the summer. And this is a great time for you to go to downtown. So go to the aquariums, go to the museums that you never went to, go to the zoo with your friends and a bunch of these places have student discounts or discounted rates on specific days. So all it takes is literally just seeing what's what like fun things to do in downtown. This is the perfect time and a great way for you to see the city before you start complaining about, oh, there's nothing to do in insert city name here because every city does have something to offer. If you just take the time and even if it is kind of boring, at least you took the time with your friends to go out, take some pictures and it's better than being at home all day, which segues me into my sixth thing is be lazy. Now, this kind of comes with a caveat, but bear with me. I think that the summer as great of a time as it is to be productive and do a lot of things that you can do during the school year. It's also a great time to just relax, like literally just lay in bed, watch Netflix, binge seasons of New Girl, each junk food. Yeah, you worked hard throughout the year. You deserve a few days to just wind down and not worry about anything. I think for me, like as someone who does enjoy being active, having a busy daily schedule, there were a few days in the summer where I was just like, dang, I just want to stay home all day. Like literally just stay in my pajamas and not do anything. And that's fine. But at the same time, don't let that become the majority of your summer. It should be one to two days a week max. Every other day, you should be trying to utilize, you know, being outside, being in the sun, going swimming and enjoying the free time that you have. Because I know you kids complain in high school about not having time to do things that you want. So yeah, take this time during the summer to first off, prioritize what you want to be doing. I think that, you know, when the summer starts, it's three months. So you should kind of have some sort of layout of how you want to be spending each month, whether it's this month I'm going to be traveling, this month I'm going to be working, this month I'm just going to be hanging out with friends. And then from there, within those specific months, you can just break it down into weeks of, OK, on Tuesday, I have dinner with a friend. Wednesday, I'm going out for lunch. On Friday, we're going to downtown. And that way, you have things to look forward to, and you're not just texting people at the last minute, hey, you want to do something, because that is super annoying, especially like from your friend's side, if they already have plans, then don't complain about, you know, all your friends are busy when you didn't take the time to plan ahead and didn't care enough about their time to see if you can squeeze them in on your own time. All right, that about wraps it up for this. If you guys enjoy these types of videos, please make sure you guys like it, drop a comment and subscribe for more videos. And I'll see you guys next time. Every night fucks every day up. Every day patches the night up. Oh, God, you should.