It’s funny how you need to start planning your next summer from one year in advance. High school used to be different, at least for me.
So this past winter break, I spent most of the time planning what I wanted to do this upcoming summer as well as other future projects, such as studying abroad. Believe it or not, some scholarships have January deadlines, even if you want to go abroad during the spring semester of your junior year, which for me it will be January of 2018. Yes, indeed the deadline still applies to you. So make sure to be vigilant about those deadlines when you’re on that same road.
In addition, I also worked on my study abroad main application and got the recommendations out of the way. I think the winter break is a wonderful time to work on whatever you want to accomplish, most likely outside of college.
Furthermore, I started scouting for internships, which is harder than you think. The deal with it is that you want to apply to several ones, but many of the places where I would like to intern have not started their 2017 internship program yet. I am thinking about perhaps interning at Scholastic, a publishing or literary company, but I would also like to intern at CNN en Español, yet those jobs are mostly around Atlanta, Georgia. But this year I am looking forward to remain in the city of New York, I want to enjoy about the city while I have it. I no longer know if I will ever live here after I graduate. There are many tentative places where I can go and my parents want to go back to live in Colombia, which means that I have to find my own home and I do not know if New York would be the place where I’ll stay. Some of the other places could be California or Oxford, England (for grad school), lofty dreams, we’ll see what happens.
Anyway, my suggestion is that always plan your summers ahead, do not wait until April, it would be too damn late. Plan, plan, plan. Make a list of the places you would like to apply and do it as soon as you can. I have sent out a lot of résumés, but I know I will have to send out a couple more in the months to come.
In other news, I also applied during this break to go on my February break to Israel on a volunteer trip. We are going to volunteer at a navy base, doing manual work and we are also going to have the opportunity to visit Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. I do not know much other details other than the premise, I have told you.
School is about to start again and I shall see how this semester will treat me—my 4th semester, so surreal. Over the break, I decided to quit one of the clubs I am involved in. I thought I have been doing too much, but you also need to ask yourself, how much is enough? And is less really more? I asked myself these questions and I thought that I felt BIEI (Brandeis Immigration Education Initiative) has not been meeting its standards, people do not commit to it, they only think it is a gig they can put in their résumé, and I am so sick of it. When you are trying to set two pieces of wood together with tape, it hardly ever stays together, thus, I decided that this semester I want to give more time and priority to my academics. Besides, I am actually taking 5 classes this semester, they are all equally academically challenging, plus a lot of reading, my friends.
You honestly do not need to go over do it like I do. I think being involved in one or two things outside of academics it’s fine and good enough. When you spare your time in 5, 6 things at the same time you are only doing the minimum for each, but you never get to further deeper into one thing. Oftentimes, you find your own passions when you explore further an activity, so this thing of multitasking may get in your way, be aware of that. The time you commit to it would pay off.
To end this note, I got to meet my donors and they were awfully nice and amicable. We had lunch at a restaurant in Manhattan and then Tanya, the late Mr. Simon’s daughter, took me to the studios of CBS’s 60 Minutes, where I got to meet one of the hosts and current correspondents of the show, Bill Whitaker. They were doing his makeup to tape the intro to the Sunday’s program. He said something incredibly touching about why he opted for such career path. He never expected to become a journalist, however, he studied history during undergrad and grad school and then he realized that doing journalism was a way to see contemporary history happening upon his own eyes, and I was only wowed by his response and it made me ponder upon going into journalism. Perhaps getting the Bob Simon’s scholarship is a sign of it, because I do think, I am not sure I can stay in front of a computer all day, in a cubicle from 9 to 5 (no offense). I want to see the world; do you get me? Is Mr. Simon the right sign?
Sincerely,
Santiago Montoya