What students should do during summer vacation

What students should do during summer vacation - an Excerpt

Summer vacation is upon us. For many children, that means sleeping in, spending time with friends, going to the mountains, or sitting by the pool. Adults, of course, either go to work and complain about the heat, or chase after children who have been temporarily freed from their academic routine.

For students in junior high school or high school (starting around 8th or 9th grade), college, graduate school, and professional school, summer falls somewhere in between the carefree days of childhood and the regimented days of adulthood. Summers are theirs to use as they please. They, too, can sit by the pool and bask in the sun. But the impending deadlines for college, graduate school, professional school, and job applications cast a long cold shadow over hot summer days.

Academic calendars vary around the world. Summer vacations can range from a few short weeks to a few months depending on the country and level of education. In the United States, summer vacation for most schools is June through August. This is true for KAIST as well.

In the United States, summer activities can vary wildly. A few students will do nothing at all. Some will travel. Some will take hourly jobs to earn money for the coming year.

But many American students use those summers as an opportunity to explore potential careers, expand their horizons, gain work experience, and otherwise enhance their resumes to maximize their chances for admission to the school or job of their choice. Such activities can include taking classes; gaining teaching, research, industry or entrepreneurial experience; volunteering; or participating in other leadership or service activities.

These students are keenly aware of the looming deadlines and the competition that they will face to achieve their goals. They leverage family connections, seize or create opportunities, and work hard to ensure that their summer activities give them every possible advantage in their professional careers.

In Korea, many of the students I talk to say that they don't know what they will do for the summer. Others say that they will take classes, travel to another part of the world, or take a rest.

I have to admit that I was surprised. Our students are extremely bright and hard working. I expected them to rattle off a litany of internships, research appointments, international volunteer work, exchange programs, and a whole host of other resume-building activities. While our students are reading books and enjoying their vacation, students in the United States are doing the academic equivalent of "beating them up and stealing their lunch money" (graduate school admissions, coveted consulting internships, etc.).

For highly motivated students seeking a role on the international stage, taking a rest for the entire summer simply isn't an option.

Students can, of course, take classes over the summer to improve their educational background. But this is more appropriate for younger students in junior high or high school who are not yet prepared for a full-time job. Summers are a great time to do intensive foreign language training and to take courses that their schools may not offer (like music theory, genetics, philosophy, world geopolitics, and more). It is also a good time to learn new tools and skills that schools may expect students to know but will not teach like computer-aided drafting.

Summers are typically not a good time to take courses in the fundamentals (calculus, physics, organic chemistry, etc.) Summer sessions tend to be shorter and may leave gaps in students' knowledge. They will pay the price for those gaps later. Taking a summer course in preparation for re-taking the course during the semester for a better grade is a tremendous waste of time and resources. In most U.S. admissions selection criteria, the potential incremental improvement in GPA has little value in comparison to real-world experience in your field. Summers should be used to expand students' horizons, not to look at the same horizon again and again.

Once students enter college, the benefit of taking summer classes rapidly falls away. Graduating with 44 classes instead of 40 on a transcript pales in comparison to having four years of internships and the references, papers, patents, and other tangible benefits that result from professional experience. Unless the classes are extraordinary, summers are better used for other things.

Business schools often say that they wish to create "T-shaped" graduates who have both breadth and depth of knowledge, skills, and experience. Although the term has become a cliche, summer experiences should reflect breadth and depth (beyond classes), as well as motivation and determination.

There is no harm in taking a week at the beginning or the end of the summer to rest and relax. Your career is more like a marathon than a sprint. But it will not be a walk on the beach. And your summer vacation shouldn't be either.

Mary Kathryn Thompson, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.


2009.05.29