Notre Dame sophomore Brian Bak never realized how much he would miss home after spending a year at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
“Being in the middle of nowhere with flatland for miles and miles makes you really appreciate the mountains and cities of the Bay Area,” he said.
College students must decide where they want to spend the summer after the academic year comes to a close. One choice is returning home to work and catching up with old friends. Another popular option is staying around campus to intern or earn some extra money. Others branch out and do their own thing, such as traveling the world or interning in a foreign country.
Students who return to Danville for the summer have found many ways to spend their time before returning to school in the fall – working, internships, spending time with friends and family, lounging lazily by the pool, catching up on sleep. All are top priorities for college kids as well as, above all, having fun.
“I came home because I missed old friends, family and pets,” said Haley Golding, a sophomore at UC Berkeley. She’s processing and notarizing loans this summer for Danville Mortgage & Financial Plans. While not at work she divides her time between singing at local fairs, traveling to Laguna Beach to visit family and friends, and relaxing by the pool.
Many students finishing their freshman year choose to come home because they think it will be their last opportunity to return for the summer. UCLA sophomore Jordan Ritenour plans to attend airborne school next summer with the Army ROTC program. “I’ll be jumping out of airplanes,” he said. “The summer after that, I’m going to an Army camp to be evaluated on soldier skills, so this is my last summer with nothing really to do.”
Returning to Danville after a year away at school can be a strange experience. College provides new insights into various issues and teaches students to think about things in a different manner. Altered perspectives tend to shift Danville into a new light.
“College is a huge learning experience,” said UC Davis junior Chris Bruno. “Danville is such a quaint, small town that it almost feels like a bubble. Everything isn’t so nice and chipper in college, and that’s a huge difference from Danville. It definitely makes it a different place for me.”
College involves becoming a part of a whole new social circle that usually does not include high school friends. Students returning home for the summer may find it difficult to reconnect to the friends they left behind.
“I’ve found that some of my friends have changed a lot,” Brian Bak said. “I’m just not as comfortable talking to them as I used to be.”
UC Santa Barbara sophomore Kristen Zimmerman disagrees. “I am still close to the friends that I was close with in high school,” she said. “I haven’t found it that challenging to reconnect with them.”
While a majority of students finishing their freshman year decide to return home for the summer, many upperclassmen prefer to stay at school to work, complete an internship, take summer classes, or just hang around.
Bruno is interning for CIS Data Systems in Davis. He works in the division that creates software and Web sites specifically for the real estate business. “I chose to stay in Davis over the summer because I work full time and make a lot of money,” he said. “Also, there are a lot of cool people that are staying in Davis with a lot of fun to be had.”
Allison Berding, a senior at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, is taking two summer classes to ease up on her senior year class load, and she’s working part time in Philadelphia for a theater company. She wanted to live in her house at Villanova for the nightlife around her and the opportunities in work and school. “And by my age,” she said, “hardly any of my high school friends are in Danville during the summer.”
Coming home or staying at school for the summer seem like logical choices for many students but there are a number of college kids who choose neither option and strike out on their own.
“I want to try and incorporate as many internships into my time before I graduate so that I can set a good, experienced foundation for myself,” Mekia Williams said. Williams, a Loyola Marymount sophomore, interns for Assemblyman Jerome E. Horton at the California State Capitol under the Legislative Black Caucus Foundation.
San Francisco State sophomore Javier Salazar is spending time in Spain this summer. “Hopefully I’ll find some sort of adventure while I am here,” he said.
Another summer alternative is a study abroad program. University of Arizona junior Chris Chang is in Hong Kong taking a course on business in modern day Hong Kong while interning in the marketing department of Wing On Ltd. “I chose to study abroad because I feel like I am reaching an age where if I don’t leave the States to visit other places, I won’t get the opportunity to travel for awhile,” he revealed. “I wanted to explore places outside of the United States.”
Whatever students are doing, they seem to agree that their summer plans should allow time to relax, spend time with family and friends, and above all, have fun.
“Making the most of your time is the most important thing,” said UC Davis sophomore Tanya Shah-Ganai. “It’s important to have fun and really have a passion for what you are doing.”
