Once I did manage to secure a few summer internships, they weren’t nearly as substantive or meaningful as I hoped they’d be. I spent a summer as a “technical writing intern” at the offices of a small airline at the Greater Cincinnati Airport. The job sounded great on paper, but in reality they had nothing for me to do and I spent the summer sitting in a cubicle with no computer (which, in hindsight, seems particularly cruel—I’m really not sure how I managed to pass the time). I also interned at the headquarters of a major bank in downtown Cincinnati and spent more time in front of the copier than I care to recall.

For me, the takeaway from those experiences is that “internships” are not always the panacea for future career success that we hope them to be. If you’re internship-less this summer, this seeming “failure” might actually give you the time to do something else you’ve been wanting to do but putting off (volunteer, study a language, read more books), things that might have unintended, and perhaps even more positive, effects on your career.