So You Want to Know What I Did With My Summer?

Every student at the University of Texas at Austin has felt it–the pressure following the most asked question.

“What are you doing this summer?”

People threw this question around my freshman year. I didn’t think much of it, not until I returned to UT

after my first summer break and asked my peers about their time off.

“Mine was so fun! I worked under Vivek Ramasamway to create a think tank,” one said.

“It was great! I traveled to farmers markets and sold pieces from my recently launched recycled clothing

business,” said another.

I stared blankly at Handshake applications that asked for three of my best clips. I didn’t know what a clip was.

Google came to the rescue, but the answer seemed to suffocate me even more. A “clip” is a sample of my

best published work. In that case, I had a no-clip summer. Instead of generating clips, I worked on the media

team at a Christian summer camp– an experience I loved. But it didn’t manifest itself into a clip, so it didn’t

seem to matter.

“You wasted your summer,” UT’s standard of success whispered to me.

According to US News & World Report, the University of Texas at Austin ranks as the seventh best public

university in the nation, naturally attracting highly ambitious individuals. Already accomplished by mere

acceptance into the university, UT freshmen’s default is academic success. A high GPA loses its competitive

significance, so research opportunities and internships become the new offense.

I asked students to anonymously share their opinions on UT’s internship culture. One student confessed that,

although they felt relaxed going into college, they immediately felt behind once they realized how many of

their peers had already completed multiple internships. Another student admitted they had worked three to

four internships at a time since high school. What had begun as resume-builder to gain admission into UT

became a high-speed treadmill they could no longer dismount from.

I’ve witnessed UT’s steep standard of success plague the student body and create an environment similar to

“the inside of a pressure cooker,” as one of my friends said.

I am no stranger to these feelings. After returning from summer break, I was utterly swarmed with

comparison. I was behind the pack. I let it get to me.

I found myself wanting time to go faster. I wanted to be in the stage of my life where I was successful. I

couldn’t wait for the seeking to end and contentment to begin.

One day, I found myself working on my resume on the floor of UT’s Student Activity Center while a blur of

suits paced around me about to enter the engineering career fair next door. Nearly 6,000 well-dressed

students were about to encounter 300 engineering firms, and their one job was to get an interview.I was safe

on the floor knowing I didn’t have to join the pageant. But as I sat on the floor in my hoodie

developing the first draft of my resume, I looked at my roommate, who wore a suit and carried 10 printed

resumes in a folder. Maybe these students weren’t entering an auction, but actually a safe house, a place one

step closer to the certainty and contentment I longed for. My relief morphed to jealousy in an instant.

One of my favorite professors later told me she was going to leave UT and work at another university in a

few months. My jaw dropped. An attorney, journalist and professor, I admired her and felt inspired by each

title she held. But she was about to add another as she accepted a more distinguished professorial position.

She was already a distinguished professor and I couldn’t fathom there being a better job. Among other things,

she told me the new position would give her money to support her research efforts—her new job was

objectively better. That’s when I realized that there will also be a better opportunity, no matter how high up

you get. Graduation was not the end of seeking, but merely the beginning.

Even if we stop chasing titles and positions, society will tell us we’re not enough. Even if we pursue the

chase, our souls will always want more. Maybe contentment is a desire that will never be fulfilled.

Scholar and theologian CS Lewis says, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can

satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”1

In November, I found out I would be studying abroad in Vienna, Austria. Just like my time at summer camp,

my life would be enriched by this experience. But it wouldn’t result in a tangible accomplishment. It wouldn’t

give me a clip.

I was giving my future too much power. It ruled me and I was crushing under its weight. I was so caught up

in determining the worth of my experiences by the experiences of my peers. I was seeking contentment in my

surroundings to no avail. As Lewis said, my contentment could not be found in accomplishing as much as my

peers. Something had to change.

Romans 8:6 says, “For to set the mind of the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and

peace.”2

At the Christian summer camp this past summer, I spent most of my time editing content in the office.

However, as I walked alongside my team in the towering woods of Tyler, Texas, I saw the extensiveness of

this world and understood how little my capacity for power was. But even more so, I was reminded that I had

access to the greatest power in our Lord. The very experience that I found myself doubting and comparing

was the one that showed me where true contentment is found.

I found freedom in the fact that finding contentment in this world is not in my hands, and it doesn’t come

from becoming the greatest power, but by submitting to it.

Endnotes

1. C. S. Lewis and Walter Hooper, Mere Christianity: An Anniversary Edition of the Three Books, The Case for

Christianity, Christian Behaviour, and Beyond Personality (New York: Macmillan, 1981), page 119.

2. The Holy Bible, ESV.