The opin­ions expressed in this arti­cle are the writer’s own and do not reflect the views of Her Cam­pus.

This arti­cle is writ­ten by a stu­dent writer from the Her Cam­pus at Tem­ple chap­ter.

As the sum­mer­time approach­es, many col­lege stu­dents are begin­ning to search for sum­mer intern­ships and post-grad­u­a­tion jobs. While it is excit­ing to gain expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge through an intern­ship or job, the oth­er side of the sto­ry is that it is not always the eas­i­est process to go through.

Many stu­dents apply to numer­ous intern­ships with­out even get­ting the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have an inter­view. Oth­ers go through the inter­view process mul­ti­ple times with­out being able to score a posi­tion in the end. It can be frus­trat­ing, con­fus­ing, and dis­ap­point­ing. 

This semes­ter I have applied to over 50 intern­ship posi­tions through­out the year. Out of the ones I applied to, I have only had 5 inter­views in total. Most of the posi­tions I applied to did not even reach out to me at all. As time went on and I kept receiv­ing more rejec­tions, I ques­tioned the prob­a­bil­i­ty of get­ting one.

I was frus­trat­ed because I felt like I was doing every­thing right and every­thing that I could have pos­si­bil­i­ty been doing to stand out to employ­ers and be qual­i­fied for the posi­tion. It made me ques­tion all the hard work I had been putting into school and all the time I spent apply­ing to intern­ships. 

Through all the dis­cour­age­ment with every rejec­tion I received, I worked towards learn­ing to accept the rejec­tion and acknowl­edge the way I was feel­ing. I knew the way I was feel­ing was com­plete­ly nor­mal. I took the time to be sad and frus­trat­ed instead of bot­tling up my emo­tions.

I used my feel­ings of dis­ap­point­ment to work hard­er at apply­ing for more posi­tions and to do what I could to bet­ter my resume. I worked towards get­ting more involved on cam­pus and improv­ing the skills that I already had. At this point, I knew that I was mak­ing my full effort. All I could keep doing was try­ing. 

I also shift­ed my view of the rejec­tion. I thought about the expe­ri­ence I gained from all the inter­views even though I did not end up with those intern­ships. With every inter­view I did I noticed my skills improv­ing. I found it eas­i­er to talk about myself and my accom­plish­ments to the inter­view­er and ask the best ques­tions.

This was a big learn­ing expe­ri­ence for me because I strug­gled with putting myself out there and com­ing across as con­fi­dent. Whether or not I felt good after each inter­view, I found things to take out of each one. After the most recent inter­view I did, I real­ized how dras­tic of a dif­fer­ence my inter­view skills were com­pared to the very first one I had. I felt much more con­fi­dent at the end of it and more cer­tain that I did the best I could. 

Although I was focus­ing a lot more of my time on try­ing to get an intern­ship, I real­ized I had to ensure I was still look­ing out for my health. I was putting too much of my focus on get­ting an intern­ship that I began to dis­re­gard oth­er areas of my life. I decid­ed to plan out what I would do each day to work towards my goal of get­ting an intern­ship but mak­ing sure to save time in my sched­ule for things that would be pos­i­tive for my health.

This includ­ed things such as going on walks or mak­ing a healthy meal to eat. By not putting too much of my focus on my goal, it made it eas­i­er to han­dle the rejec­tions when they did come. I had to remind myself that there are so many oth­er aspects to my life that are impor­tant, and that life will go on whether I get an intern­ship this sum­mer or not. 

I caught myself at times over­an­a­lyz­ing the rea­sons why I was not suc­cess­ful so far and real­ized that this was not doing me any good. It did not make sense to try to com­pare myself to the oth­er can­di­dates because I did not even know who they were.

There could have been a thou­sand dif­fer­ent rea­sons as to why some­one else was cho­sen over me for a cer­tain intern­ship, so try­ing to fig­ure out that rea­son was not worth my time. Just because some­one else may have been more qual­i­fied than me for a cer­tain posi­tion does not take away from all the skills and hard work that I have put in. I began to learn to accept the cir­cum­stances and spend less time try­ing to under­stand why. 

I still do not have a sum­mer intern­ship yet, but I am con­tin­u­ing to use all the rejec­tions to push myself to keep try­ing while still main­tain­ing a healthy bal­ance of all the aspects of my life. I have accept­ed that I do not have total con­trol over the way things work out and that all I can do is con­tin­ue to try my best.

If you have found your­self dis­ap­point­ed over not get­ting the intern­ship or job that you real­ly want­ed, feel your feel­ings, and then learn as much as you can from each sit­u­a­tion. Rejec­tion is a nor­mal part of life that can be used to moti­vate your­self in a healthy way even more.