So I'm not one of the "chosen ones".

You know, those select few who actually grasp the chance to work in the field of their choice. I don't know about you but, I really truly thought that this would be my summer. Why not me? It's been difficult for me to accept the fact that I'm going to spend another summer at camp instead of the city.

Another summer will go by and I'll start the school year with zero internships. Am I pissed? Yeah, kind of. Frustrated? Definitely. It's so incredibly hard in this day and age for us to separate ourselves from the rest of the pack. We have to really dig to answer that one dreaded question, "what makes you different and why should we choose you?" The fact that everything is electronic now doesn't help either. Companies don't have the chance to really see you, both figuratively and literally. All they see is who you are on paper, and hardly even that. They now have the luxury of avoiding the burden of looking a college student right in the face. It's like online dating for a job. If they don't like what they see on the outside, they swipe left. I applied to 30 internships. Only two had the decency to a) let me down with a nice rejection letter and b) tell me that they wouldn't be moving on to the interview round. Getting rejected felt significantly better than not being acknowledged did.

I still don't fully understand how a company can tell how promising a candidate is just from their resumé and cover letter. Sure, on a resumé you can list every retail, camp, and other job you've had since high school. What makes your extensive retail and customer service experience better than my publicity and marketing experience applicable to an internship at an event planning agency? I'm not arguing that I'm better than the next but rather, I'm challenging the selection process. There must be a better way than posting the position on indeed.com, having 435 people apply, and picking that one needle out of a ridiculous haystack. All I wanted to do this summer was to learn. I wanted to be able to put on my resumé an internship that would be different that what I already have- and it's not much. It's becoming increasingly difficult to get that internship you've dreamed of; it's even difficult to get an internship that you only applied to for the heck of it. I know, it's hard to see the positive in what can be such a discouraging process.

There is a light to be seen in all of this 2017 technological (excuse my French) bullsh*t. Get mad, get pissed off, get frustrated, and then get back to work. Don't let not having an internship prevent you from having an incredible summer. Look for a job that you're genuinely interested with (or that makes you a bunch of money). If you know you want to work with kids, shoot for that camp job with more responsibility instead of settling for being a counselor. What you make of your summer is entirely in your hands. Yeah, I'm working at camp again. But this time, I have more responsibility and more of a chance to show what I can do. When I'm applying to grad school for education, I'm going to be thankful I stayed at camp all those summers. I didn't get an internship this summer and I couldn't be more thankful.