Over the last spring semester, my friends and I bemoaned our common predicament as Harvard College juniors: the difficulty of landing a summer internship.
Even with the stellar qualifications that brought us here, it has not been enough to satisfy the demands of countless external companies.
Many parents mostly send their children to college — especially an Ivy League institution like Harvard — to “see a return on investment.”
For students like me, the fear of not being able to produce a deliverable feels more than merely bad; it can place tangible financial stressors.
That’s why it was so stressful for me when I struggled to land the coveted junior summer internship.
My previous summer internship experiences
I have worked in my sector — climate policy, sustainable energy advocacy, and electoral politics — since 15. At 18, I also picked up my secondary vocation as a freelance writer. I am now 21.
Throughout my last two years of high school, I worked part time as a climate organizer, running lobbying events at the New York State Capitol, and one summer, co-managing over 80 interns for an electoral campaign.
During my last two undergraduate summers, I was fortunate enough to have two funded opportunities in Washington, D.C. The first summer, the opportunity I found was granted through Harvard’s institute. The second summer, I decided to force myself to rely upon the traditional “crapshoot” online application process, monitoring LinkedIn job updates daily.
While it proved difficult — I faced rejections, as expected in any job search — I did eventually land a position.
Heading into this summer, I expected the process to be similarly difficult. I sure was wrong.
My junior summer internship application process
Between January and mid-April, I submitted applications for 15 internships in the climate policy and politics sectors, with more applications half-drafted in my Google Drive — bringing the total to around 20.
After submission, I frequently was met with radio silence. Occasionally, I’d receive a rejection notification. In one case, it was to notify me that the internship acceptance rate was 0.008%, which was the primary reason for rejection.
Even now, I am still receiving rejection notifications for opportunities I applied to months ago.
On occasion, I would receive a first-round interview offer. A singular interview notification would be a gleeful glimmer if not for the multiple following rounds that have become so commonplace.
My classmates are struggling to find internships, too
Summer internship offers are seemingly few and far between for the collegiate applicants I personally know.
With a poor job market comes fewer internship opportunities, slowing the career trajectories of new Generation Z entry-level employees.
It isn’t a complex of generational individualism, either: report after report indicates that college graduates currently face the worst job market in decades.
Harvard’s shared job market struggles
I am lucky to have an offer this summer, albeit unpaid. Given the realities of the current job market, it is no surprise that fellow Harvard students neglect the immediacy of their academic work at Harvard to pursue their chance at professional prosperity each summer. The stress of ensuring one’s job security in the current post-graduate space never fully dissipates.
I personally possess a grave fear of my long-term post-graduate unemployment. It isn’t unfounded. I recall watching two recent Harvard alumni I know cycle through literal hundreds of initial applications, interviews, ghosts, and rejections. They both eventually succeeded, but still, it entailed a situation of financial precarity.
So while the current labor moment presents us with a once-in-a-generation economic challenge, it does not mean that all of our looming postgraduate life is inherently soured by a single summer.
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