How to Make the Most of Your Break

The long break for most colleges and universities is coming soon. Have you planned how to spend your holiday? In the previous post where we talked about the public school holidays, I suggested parents let the children have fun and rest more during holidays, but keep in mind, this does not work for colleges or universities students.

Why?

It is because you are no longer a kid or teenager. You’re an adult now. You will need to face the outside world once you finished your study. The life inside the campus is easy, but the world outside the campus is a battlefield. And if you think the life inside the campus isn’t easy, just bear in mind the world outside is even tougher!

So, the long breaks between semesters are good chances to prep yourself for the war.

Internships

It is good to do internships because it is the best way to strengthen your CV. Although some jobs are open for fresh grads, everyone knows that the fresh grads with proper internships experiences in corporates stand a bigger chance to get the jobs.

Taking an internship not only gives you opportunities to test-drive your knowledge and skills. The moment you apply for an internship, you have to learn how to write your cover letter and learn how to do well in interviews. Moreover, you can build connections during internships.

You can apply for internships from organizations that liaise with your school or from trusted job searching platforms. Keep in mind there are a lot of organizations offer unpaid internships, you can still go ahead if the opportunity really benefits you, but don’t go for it if they only want to exploit young people.

Don’t let yourself become an ‘intern’ who only assigned to make coffee!

Part-time Jobs

Getting a part time job during a break is a great choice. You can consider to be an agent in contact centers, wait in restaurants or teach your strength subjects in tuition centers. Most part-time jobs are front-line jobs, you definitely will have chances to learn how to deal with all kinds of customers at the same time you will learn how to teamwork with your co-workers. These are the transferable skills that will help you in future.

Working part time, especially when you’re working for retail jobs, you will encounter all sorts of challenges each day. Therefore, you will not feel bored if you take a part-time job during the break. Moreover, you can earn money to buy things that you want. It is more satisfying than asking your parents to buy for you.

Volunteers

You should be a lucky one if you were one who wondered what to do and where to go during college breaks. There are a lot of unfortunates need our helps to survive. Since you are still young, you can support them by efforts instead of money.

If you are good in academic and have patience to young people, you can volunteer yourself to an orphanage near your place as a voluntary tuition teacher. Or, you can join Kechara Soup Kitchen Team or any other similar organizations to bring food and comfort to the people that society forgets. You can also apply for the volunteer program from World Vision 30 Hours Famine to get involved in this meaningful event!

There are a lot of benefits for volunteering. You will gain knowledge of how to use available local resources to solve community needs and learn about the functions and operation of the government while working with non-profit agencies. All the experiences are good for your personal growth and can build your self-esteem stronger. You also get to make friends with other passionate young people like you.

Travels with Missions

Travel is the best friend of holiday. It is always good to travel somewhere new and be inspired by different cultures. It would be even better if you travel with some missions.

You can go for a working holiday, an international internship program or volunteer yourself at your destination. Gaining experiences at the same time enjoy a memorable trip, it’s like killing two birds with one stone! But bear in mind, you have to save up enough money in order to go for these programs. If you spent your first and/or second long break to do some part time jobs, you might manage to save the money you need.

For your reference, here is an article about how to apply the USA working holiday visa and here is another article about the application process of New Zealand working holiday visa. If you’re seeking for internship opportunities and volunteer programs abroad, you can visit AIESEC Malaysia’s site for more information.

In a Nut Shell

You can still let yourself take some good rests and hang out with friends during your break, but since it is a long break, you will get lazier and end up over-spend money if you never find some beneficial activities to concentrate on, while there are aggressive persons who make the most of the break.

Don’t give excuses! You know you can do something.