College students are used to keeping busy, so summer break can feel like you are crashing into a brick wall with nothing to do. What do you do with all your free time? Here are some ways you can keep moving forward with productivity:

• Update your resume
  • You can never have a perfect resume. Update it from last semester, proofread, reorganize it, or even find something to add to it.
• Get a summer job
  • While you are out of school, it never hurts to get a summer job to make more money. This can be picking up more hours at a current job or getting a part-time job.
• Write a new personal statement
  • Your writing skills get better the more you use them. Start that personal statement again and add something new!
• Volunteer
  • Volunteers are needed just about everywhere. Finding somewhere to help out in your free time is a great selfless act for the summer.
• Apply for scholarships and fellowships
  • During the school year, you may not have much time to do this, so take advantage of your free time now to try and earn advances toward your education.
• Review your notes within the past year
  • It is easy to forget details, so review your notes to see what you retained from class and what you should look over again to remember long-term.
• Read a book or other scholarly articles
  • This keeps your mind engaged so you don’t jump back into the school year and feel like you are bombarded with a heavy reading load.
• Look into research
  • Research is always a great opportunity. Find a lab that interests you, work up a resume and personal statement, send an email to see if there are openings in the lab or what the availability is.
• Prepare for post-graduate plans
  • Are you going into the workforce after you graduate? Look into where you want to go. Are you taking an exam for post-undergraduate studies? If so, start studying now. Are you planning on taking a gap year or traveling? Start planning exactly what you want to do.
• Look for summer internships
  • Many businesses understand that students are only free in the summer, so they offer summer internships. See if you can land one in the field of your choice. This helps you get hands-on experience before you have to dive right in.
• Job shadow
  • This is another way to get experience in the field of your choice without having to dive right in. Job shadowing is majorly a hands-off experience where you watch someone do their job and ask questions. This is a great introductory experience to a job of your choice to see if you are truly interested in the job and to get your questions answered.
• Get certified
  • Depending on your career path, different certifications are offered through different programs, but take what you can get! Any certification shows you are willing to put in work early. A common option is the CPR and First Aid certification through the American Red Cross. Even if you are not interested in the health field, this can be a good certification to get, because accidents happen everywhere.
• Take a class
  • It is recommended that you only take classes if you have to in order to graduate during a desired time. This is because summer breaks are supposed to be a break from the traditional academic school year, summer classes have a different cost of attendance than fall and spring tuition, and summer classes are heavily accelerated. If you do take summer classes though, it is a great way to keep your brain busy during the summer so you don’t feel rusty when the fall semester starts.
• Find a summer program
  • Many professional tracks have summer programs across the nation where you can learn more about the profession, practice hands-on skills, and even give a boost to the academic side of your career path. Give a quick google search to summer programs with your major or track to see if there is something that catches your eye!