<p>I know this is still kinda early to think about this, but what do people generally do the summer before college? I know I should chill, hang out, get ready for college, w/e., but I want to do something else productive. anything in mind that I could look into? summer program? research? something specifically for people who have just graduated high school.</p>
<p>Jackson Labs in Maine runs a summer research assistance program, it’s nine weeks so kind of a big commitment but it pays $3,600. Maine is also awesome in the summer. I am applying to this I think.</p>
<p>mmhm summer research internships. nice. gooooood idea.</p>
<p>Dude, I live 15 miles from Bar Harbor!</p>
<p>research is not a bad idea if you want to do something productive.</p>
<p>though speaking as someone who did do research the summer before college, i kind of regret not having had that summer to bum around and figure out who i really was</p>
<p>Probably most people work to earn money for college. If you’re in the relatively small proportion of the population that doesn’t have to do that (a proportion of the population that’s overrepresented on College Confidential), then do whatever would make you happy, and thank your lucky stars for being so fortunate.</p>
<p>have the best EFFING time of your life,that’s what. ;)</p>
<p>Have fun. By most standards I didn’t do anything “productive.” I didn’t have a job. But…</p>
<p>-I got closer with some friends and even closer with some of my good friends
-Except for a few days where I was really really bored, I was always having fun
-I went to Montreal and a Canadian National Park for a week with one of my best friends
-I then went to Vermont for a week with said friend
-I found love with a wonderful girl (and we’re still together)
-I burned a bridge, but oh well
-I got into a car crash
-I got my driver’s license three weeks after :P</p>
<p>It was honestly one of the best summers I have ever had. Now if your idea of a great summer is work or research then go for it. But if your idea of fun is hanging out with friends then do that. You’ve got four years in college to do research… no big rush.</p>
<p>agreed with code h : D
hopefully, i’ll be backpacking across europe with my cousin :)</p>
<p>oh shoot. I forgot that I need to work too…o_o</p>
<p>I guess I’ll just party with McChickens and 5000 calories milkshakes…</p>
<p>“-I got closer with some friends and even closer with some of my good friends
-Except for a few days where I was really really bored, I was always having fun
-I went to Montreal and a Canadian National Park for a week with one of my best friends
-I then went to Vermont for a week with said friend
-I found love with a wonderful girl (and we’re still together)
*-I burned a bridge, but oh well *
*-I got into a car crash *
-I got my driver’s license three weeks after :P”</p>
<p>ummm all that stuff was great, but how can getting into a crash and burning a bridge constitute the best summer?
plus some aren’t as fortunate as you are, there’s no way i’ll find a girl in this summer and i don’t have any close friends to travel with</p>
<p>Because it’s all part of the adventure of life, and the bridge I burned wasn’t one really worth keeping anyway. If you haven’t learned by now that you gotta take the good and the bad, you’re in for a real surprise.</p>
<p>As for being “fortunate” uh, unless you live in a ranch in the middle of nowhere where the only human beings for 20 miles are you, your parents, and some creepy old guy then it’s really not that hard to get a girlfriend. As for not having any close friends, you probably brought that on yourself chief. I consider myself fortunate that I have the good friends that I have, but I don’t consider myself fortunate that I have friends. Anyone can make friends.</p>
<p>I’m planning to have an internship with the Breakthrough Collaborative. It’s about 8 weeks, and it’s a good bit of work, so I’m hoping I get to teach 7th grade Biology again, because I already have all my lesson plans for that written.</p>
<p>My sister had a job at a bakery with one of her friends and two steady baby sitting commitments. She went out with her friends all the time (I think she saw ever major and minor movie release in our city) and spent all of the money she earned babysitting, but saved all of the money from her real job. A lot of the friends she met at college had to have work study jobs, even though she goes to a pretty ritzy/high average income college, so it was good that she had had a job over the summer where she could work and still have a ton of free time. A lot of her HS friends left at the end of the summer because they go to semester schools that start earlier, but that was the only time in the summer when she felt unproductive.
Oh, and she was involved in this massive quilt making project with another one of her friends. She does that every summer now.</p>
<p>Get</p>
<p>a </p>
<p>job</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>si. a satisfying job. :D</p>
<p>Get whichever summer job most of your friends/ people your age get (where I live, as a camp counselor at the YMCA). Then use the remainder of the time to bum around, come to terms with leaving home, go on random vacations with you friends, etcetc</p>
<p>I’m going to visit family back in Japan!! Hopefully, go to Korea and China maybe.</p>
<p>go to europe for a bit, then egypt and morocco with my most of my friends from school 
and then spend my last days back in india. oh and working of course, volunteering, spending time with family, etc.</p>
<p>Work so I have money.</p>
<p>You can do something productive like volunteering or interning, but honestly just have fun. Because by the time you get into college, you would be probably doing summer classes and this might probably be the only summer that you’ll be totally college free!</p>