I currently am in the process of filling out the common app.
I have an internship at an architecture firm but it has showed me I really do not want to go into architecture.
Should I put the internship on the commonapp even though I won’t be applying to architecture schools or should I leave it out?
Is there any way you could kind of spin it to make it relevant to your goals now? The same thing happened to me the summer before my junior year. I had an internship with a neurologist at a local hospital, but at the end it just showed me that I did not want to pursue a career in medicine or be a pre-med in college.
But I applied to colleges as a Cognitive Science major, so in my resume for the description of my internship I spun it to say that it showed me how the brain sciences are applied in real life, etc. rather than talking about it through the lens of medicine, if that makes sense. Maybe you could do that same thing for your architecture internship.
Leave it on. Internships are often competitive, and working at one shows ambition on your part. The architecture internship would also be a benefit if you are planning on an engineering major, but regardless of your career interests, an internship at a professional firm is a strong EC.
I would leave it on. It was a valuable experience – you spent time in an office environment and learned something – even it it is a field you ultimately don’t want to pursue. Part of the HS and college experience should be this type of exploration. Plus it shows you were productive with your time.