Flashback to middle school.

Summer was all about pool days with your best friends, popsicles, and games of tag throughout your neighborhood. Maybe you got to look forward to a week or two of summer camp as well. There wasn’t a worry in the world once summer rolled around.

In high school, the stakes got a little higher. Your parents may have told you it was time to get a summer job, and although you probably liked the money that came with working, it wasn’t a top priority. You still focused on making plans with your friends to hang out once you got off work and had a bucket list of summer adventures you hoped to achieve.

College is a different chapter of life. We leave the long, caffeinated nights in the library behind and breathe a sigh of relief after our last final. But the harsh reality is that summer is the time to work almost every day in order to save up for the school year because you know when fall comes around you will need money for tuition, housing, books, or maybe just want cash to spend on weekends.

Your workplace becomes your second home and your co-workers become some of your best friends, which isn’t a bad thing but just like school, work comes with deadlines and obligations. “Downtime” during summer break is a myth when you are a college student.

When you aren’t at work, odds are you are probably taking a summer class to get credits out of the way (or catch up). Especially in the first two years of college, gen-ed classes can become obnoxious. What better way to avoid them during the fall when you are also managing four other classes along with extracurriculars than to take a class or two during summer break. It will save you the stress and the money.

With the few hours of free time you might have left, summer is also the perfect time to get fit all in the span of three months. During the school year, it is hard to find time or motivation to make it to the gym. In summer you might have a little less on your plate, so you cram workouts to drop the extra pounds and get toned.

Being a college student doesn’t mean that there are no opportunities to create fun summer memories, it just means that you have less time to create them. It is more realistic to plan a couple of exciting events with friends than to try and get through 10 in a week as you once did when younger.

The sun is still shining and summer season is still here, it’s just a matter of making the best out of your time.