It is barely January but the worry about how to spend the coming summer is already gnawing at columnist Katherina Riesner. Many students face the same problem. Here she debates the manifold options that are offered.
Forrest Gump repeatedly reminds us in the 1994 movie of the same name that “life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” I could not agree more. If you want something sweet you need to pick one of the chocolates, independent of what the filling is going to be. You look at the exterior. Guess and make a decision. Hope for the best and take a bite. I feel like the coming summer is exactly this for me, a box of chocolates of which I can only pick one. Unfortunately, all the candy looks equally delicious. What is worse, if I cannot decide, the box will be offered to someone else and I will be stuck eating a sour apple.
The past few years, my summer plans were fairly set. I took final exams, wrote essays and finished smaller assignments and then spent four to five weeks working on my term papers. Whatever was left of my semester break, I would spend on the East Coast of the U.S. during Indian summer, visiting friends and recharging for the next term. Studying in Sweden, my summer plans need to change since there are no deadlines for papers to keep; no final exams to take. More than two months of total freedom. What do I do with that?
The box I have in front of me now is filled with work, internships, summer school, travelling, volunteering and a few chocolates I haven’t looked at closely enough yet. Assuming that eating more than one is going to make me sick, which one should I choose? Do I want to be productive and earn some extra money so that travelling home will be easier next year? Do I want to polish my CV by doing a two month long internship? Should I go to summer school abroad because it might give me inspiration for my MA thesis? What about travelling through Scandinavia? I still have not seen half of what I want to see in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Why not pack a bag and explore this country I live in and improve my Swedish on the way? Or should I do something more selfless and meaningful instead and join a volunteer program in Africa or South America?
Whenever I am about to reach into the box, another beautifully wrapped chocolate catches my eye and I halt. Some of them look delicious on the outside and taste great at first but might end up giving you a cavity. Others seem to be hard to crack and you are afraid of losing a tooth but once you are inside, the filling tastes better than anything you could have ever imagined. Several of the chocolates are slowly starting to melt in the increasing January sunlight. It is time to decide. Which one will you choose?
