Ben Facey | Summer plans

At Face Value | Don't be afraid to quantify happiness

By Ben Facey 03/15/16 10:08pm

I go to Penn, so obviously I am freaking out about what I am going to do this summer. It is already mid-March and I do not have clear plans for June, so obviously I am already behind where I am supposed to be. I have applied to several internships and jobs, carefully tweaking and perfecting my embarrassingly short resume weekly to make myself look as hireable as possible.

I mean, God forbid I don’t get an internship and have to go home this summer ... right?

I feel like everywhere I go now, all I hear is people talking about summer plans. Wharton students complaining about the struggles of OCR, kids in class discussing all the places they have applied for this summer, girls at Starbucks discussing plans to backpack across Europe and my own friends freaking out about not knowing what they will be doing in three months’ time. This discussion of summer plans seems ubiquitous and omnipresent on our Penn campus at the moment, and honestly it is not surprising.

At this point, I feel we are all aware of the culture that our school supports — and actually creates — amongst the student body. A culture of uber-competitiveness, a culture of nonstop drive, with the sole purpose of succeeding in a competitive environment. A culture telling us we must take every possible opportunity available to us now, or we will be left behind when push comes to shove a few years down the line.

This overpowering success-based culture creates this need to use summer vacation as a way to gain experiences that will keep us on track to succeed in the future, but in all honesty I kind of just want to go home.

My parents have told me that when I turn 26 and can no longer be on their health insurance, they will retire, sell our house and leave the city. Although I’m supportive and am excited for the day they get to retire, knowing that in a few years I will no longer have a reason to go back to Williamsport makes me want to return right now ever more.

Although I have yet to hear back from several internships and summer opportunities I have applied for, I think my desire to go home might just win out. Rather than living in a big city, setting the groundwork for a career, I’ll be working a terrible minimum wage job and going on weekend road trips with my friends. I’ll play on a local soccer team and sit around complaining about how there is nothing to do in Williamsport.

I did not write this article with the intent of talking down on not going home for the summer. Honestly, working in the city, traveling to new places and gaining valuable experience are all amazing and completely worthwhile. Furthermore, everyone is different, has different pasts and different goals for the future that affect how they decide to do everything, including how they spend their summers.

Penn students as a whole are held to extremely high and taxing expectations. Going to one of the best schools in the world comes with expectations of success and greatness, but these expectations overwhelm its students and create a culture of non-stop self marketing, networking, working and anxiety.

Penn’s culture holds students to an expectation of using all available time to become a more marketable employee in the future. It turns a summer break into allotted work time. It forces students like myself who want — and honestly need — a break to jump right out of education into the workforce and then right back in.

I implore all Penn students to choose to do whatever they wish this summer. All I ask is that these students not be afraid to value their own happiness when making these decisions.

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