College summers are strange. For once in your life you don't feel the need to pull an East High Wildcats and break into song and dance about it, (Don't pretend like you aren't familiar with "What Time is It? (Summer Time)" from "HSM 2").You're leaving your friends and your life of sweet, sweet freedom. Summers between college years are just about finding a way to kill time for three months, and there are seven distinct ways you can choose from to do so.
1. The Camp Summer: Usually freshmen, these people are still in denial of the fact that they're now considered adults and want to relive their camp glory days. Sometimes, these people haven't even gone to camp before but have parents pushing them to get a summer job, and this is what all their friends were doing. Whichever type of person decides to partake in the camp summer, they all come back with an uncomfortably strange love for said camp, a bunch of cult-like camp friendships, and a bunch of stories that nobody wants to hear.
2. The Summer Abroad: This is the summer getaway that was made for social media. College students abroad are some of the most annoying people on the planet, (trust me, I was one of them). Thanks to these world travelers, your Instagram feed is suddenly filled with the Tower of London or Spanish beaches. And you can't look at Snapchat stories without seeing a barrage of alcoholic beverages (because the drinking age is 18 in Europe, so no one's mother can get mad). These lucky few return with bizarre souvenirs, a few foreign words memorized to impress friends, and the false impression that they're worldly and experienced.
3. Summer School: This type of summer has to be the most painful to watch through the lens of your iPhone. While everyone else had to pack up and leave the college lifestyle for three months, these kids get to stay. Sure, it's not exactly the same, but it's almost better. The classes are shorter and less challenging, the amount of pedestrians and teenage-drivers decrease, and everyone lives so easy it's like a Jimmy Buffet song. Imagine a normal semester of college, but with the "slo-mo" feature on. You'll find the easily stressed bookworms taking more frequent study breaks, and the shy girl from down the hall racking up a huge bar tab. When August hits, it goes back to normal, but the summer crew has some odd, unspoken bond that will make everyone wonder what really goes on in your college town when you're not around.
4. Internships: Interns are usually on the brink of graduation and filled with the sudden realization that the best days of their lives are over, and that the real world is waiting around the corner to kick them while they're down. Those with this kind of summer are the ones you don't hear from. They go on an Instagram and Snapchat hiatus because the only people they're around are their grown-up coworkers. Their idea of a vacation is going to bed early so they're not so tired at their desk the next day. They'd like to think that enduring this seventh-level-of-hell kind of misery will benefit them in a few short months when their job search begins. But, even if that’s true, why start adulthood earlier than you have to? I mean, it’s like beginning ACT prep in third grade.
5. The Wild Card Summer: This is the person who never gave anyone a straight answer when the most frequently asked question of spring semester — "What are you doing this summer?", — was brought up. You will catch glimpses of these people doing the most random things. According to their social media, and word of mouth, one day they're back at school hanging out with the summer school crowd, the next day they seem to have a job of some sort. The next week you'll spot a Facebook album with pictures of their random trip to California or a concert or two. This type of summer is as unpredictable and volatile as Taylor Swift's love life, but, it's arguably the best, also like Taylor Swift's love life It's like an appetizer sampler at Chili's, you can't decide which one sounds the tastiest so you get to try a little bit of all of them. These people come back to school with a refreshing attitude, the coolest stories, and really high Instagram likes.
6. The Summer at Home: To a freshman, this is a fate they wouldn't wish upon their worst enemy. The high school "friends," the parental guidance and the suffocating hometown, they're all back, just when you thought you were rid of them. To a rising senior, this isn't all that bad. Being back on your parents payroll is a breath of fresh air and a break from checking your account balance online. The pantry it always stocked and someone is always making sure you've been fed. It's a nice contrast to the usual: "I'm poor and lazy so I'll eat this bag of Baked Lays for dinner." Your bed seems even more comfortable than how you left it, your siblings are more bearable and your pets are always waiting for you when you come home. Deep down, the people who choose this type of summer, (whether it's against their will or not), realize that this could be the last summer they have with their family at their own house, so they better enjoy it while it lasts — or not, depending on your family.
7. Beach Summer: Those who choose the increasingly popular beach summer are free spirits. They wear a lot of flowy clothes, actually met their summer body goals and probably have a possession that has "not all who wander are lost" written across it. They seem to eat all of their meals while sitting cross-legged by the waves and pretend that the gritty feeling of sand that got into their sandwich sliding down their throat isn't nasty. The way the humidity doesn't seem to faze them also usually means that all of these people have naturally straight hair. They live the summer of a main character in a young adult summer romance novel, or a Disney Channel Original movie. These people come back with tans that last well into football season and too many pieces of jewelry that incorporate seashells.
Whatever kind of summer you have, I hope you make it a good one. And always remember, summers are for making memories that will last a lifetime … or at least until something better comes along fall semester.
