Like many at Penn, I thought it would be a positive life decision to apply for an internship at an investment bank. To be completely honest, I only did it because I was bored over winter break and one of my friends was applying for the same program. Considering that the only response I could supply for the “relevant skills” section of the application was WordPress, I had a feeling I wouldn’t be accepted, even though my essay on my unrestrained passion for finance was a very well executed exercise in BS. Still, as an econ major curious to see what all the Penn fascination with I–banking was about, I actually wanted to get the internship. It was kind of like how Cady wanted to ruin Regina’s life and be her friend at the same time. So I submitted my application. Three months later: still waiting for a response. For a while, I went through the five stages of grief — denial, anger, annoyance, apathy and forgetting that I even applied — but I’m doing better now. At this point, I’ve started to look into other summer options, most of which involve considerably less work than whatever it is I expect summer investment banking interns do; yet I’m strangely okay with that. You see, I started off this semester thinking that summer would be a time to start to build a resume and get some “real world experience.” It’s not. For four months we’re free of our scholastic duties, hangovers in recitation and emails about career fairs from Helen Cheung. (Hey, Helen!) It’s a time to prepare for the cabin fever we’ll get from extended stays in our Van Pelt carrels and to realize that there are bigger problems than when Capogiro runs out of coffee. Though it’s impressive that Penn is the nation’s premier institution for churning out interns, we all take ourselves a bit too seriously. I understand that a lot of us are eager to break free of our undergraduate years at Penn, but it’s probably healthy to enjoy our youth before we have to worry about finding jobs and trying to figure out what exactly a 401(k) is. As the immortal Vitamin C asked, “Will we think about tomorrow like we think about now?/ Can we survive it out there? Can we make it somehow?” I know we’ll be fine. Great. Maybe even excellent. And when I’m (hopefully) employed and livin’ the dream, I’d like to believe that I made the most out of my college–era summers by doing as little as possible: reading outside, getting horribly sunburned, watching all seven seasons of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer (again) and, most importantly, finding myself. Totally joking about that last one. I do realize all of this gives the impression that I’m still coping with my rejection and justifying apparent laziness, but I’m very happy with the ways things worked out. Really! So give me a call this summer – I’ll be around.

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