What kind of adventure should I have this summer?

October 22, 2010 11:31 AM

I'm thirty years old, and it's my first semester of grad school after working in the corporate world for 8 years. It just kind of hit me that I'm going to have a summer vacation for the first time in forever. Whoa, awesome, but what to do with myself? Also, how to fund it?

I may try to get a job at my university that's related to my field, but I am strongly leaning toward using this opportunity to have an adventure. I've spent my entire life in New England. I would love to spend this coming June, July, and August somewhere else in the USA or the world. Somewhere beautiful and exciting with opportunities to meet people, have fun, and do things outdoors.

I've read all these threads, but I still have some specific questions.

Some details about me: I am studying education, but my classroom experience is minimal. I have experience supervising college students and also working with them one-on-one as an academic adviser. I have office experience and some tech experience, but I'd really love to find an opportunity where I get to leave that stuff at home. No camp experience. No restaurant experience. No special skills. I only speak English. I'm a cyclist and a skier.

I'm not totally opposed to manual labor -- but the perfect summer job for me would be one where I get to be social on the job.

Does anyone have any specific ideas or suggestions for places to go or jobs to pursue? I'm open to all possibilities, but bonus points for suggestions that involve doing something productive -- teaching English, saving a forest, building homes, etc. I love the idea of teaching skiing in the southern hemisphere, but will the fact that I only know English prohibit that?

Also, at 30 years old (actually I'll be 31 this summer), am I going to end up someplace where I feel like a grandfather? I don't mind hanging out with people that are younger than me, but if I end up in a dorm somewhere with undergrads am I going to seem like a weirdo?

I only need to be able to make enough money to have food, shelter, and fun over the course of the summer.

(anon because my current employer is a MeFite)

posted by anonymous to Travel & Transportation (12 answers total)

I don't know if it is possible to do this for one summer only, but perhaps you could get a job teaching English in Korea or China. Also, find out if your university has internship programs in other countries that would allow you to teach/ do research for a small stipend.
posted by Everydayville at 11:38 AM on October 22, 2010

I am not a grad student, just taking grad courses through tuition remission from work, but I was under the impression that grad student summers should ideally involve something relevant to their degree that contributes to their future success.

So, while planning your adventure, you may also want to consider traveling for volunteer and internship opportunities. The Washington, DC, region in particular (where I happen to live) has a lot of cool things to apply for and lots of entertainment options.
posted by Nomyte at 11:41 AM on October 22, 2010

if you're in grad school, you want to get out as quickly as possible. graduate school doesn't pay well, and at 30, you have responsibilities and bills to pay. focus on graduationg. summer is the time for finding a research project that you can eventully turn into a dissertation. a summer job should reflect this. talk to faculty in the department and look for a summer research assistanceship.find out what faculty are doing, and how you can attach yourself to the project in a way that will help you graduate quickly. in fact, chances are your advisor already has plans for what you're doing over the summer. you should probably find out what those are.
posted by yeolcoatl at 11:42 AM on October 22, 2010

If it were me, I'd do a NOLS course. The leadership skills you learn will be applicable almost anywhere, and I think they might even have some programs aimed at educators. Plus you'll be out living in the wilderness, learning awesome stuff in amazing scenery and building bonds with the other people in your group. Sure, it's not as directly relevant as teaching summer school or taking more classes or doing something to earn money to offset student loans. But then again, you have your whole life to do those things. How often do you get summer break after the age of 30?
posted by vytae at 12:04 PM on October 22, 2010

I'd spend the summer on campus working on your masters thesis or whatever big project you have ahead of you. Summer is an amazing time to get a lot of work done without other obligations (TAing or whatever.) #whompwhompwhomp #speakingassomeonenearlydonewiththephd
posted by k8t at 12:10 PM on October 22, 2010

I'm in the "work over the summer and get out of grad school as quick as you can" crowd. The sooner you've got your degree and can get a job that actually pays the bills, the better.

Besides, personally, after a week or two away from home, I can't wait to get back. A whole summer of "adventure" might get more tiring than you think.
posted by elder18 at 12:15 PM on October 22, 2010

Talk to second year students in your program and find out what they did last summer.
posted by hydropsyche at 12:47 PM on October 22, 2010

Are you in a scientific or medical field? You could apply for EAPSI (East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes for U.S. Graduate Students). You get do do research for a summer in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore or Taiwan, fully funded by the US NSF. The deadline for submission for next summer is November 10th, which isn't much time to work out a relationship and research project with a remote professor, but you may want to give it a shot, or try for next year.
posted by zsazsa at 12:49 PM on October 22, 2010

Hike the Appalachian Trail? Hike the Pacific Crest Trail? Find a community in Hawaii (or someplace else), live cheaply, get to know other folks in the community. For example, Kipuka Temple is $500 per month, but maybe you could work out some kind of working stay. Apply for a summer job at Omega Institute, meet interesting people, take a few workshops.
posted by indigo4963 at 1:18 PM on October 22, 2010

Especially as you're getting a degree in (and thus presumably planning a career in) education, you need to stop thinking about this as "summer vacation" in the sense of "school's out, time to play." Summer is when higher-ed academics (this includes you, for the duration of your graduate study!) do research, and when teachers do professional development; it's not just a time to play.

Taking some vacation time is expected, but so is doing some work toward professional goals. Ideally, you can combine the two. One obvious possibility, and something that I found really useful during an early grad-school summer, is language study; summer language-immersion programs like Middlebury's are a great way to polish existing language skills or acquire basic competency in a new language. You should ask around at your institution to see if funding is available for a research/study-based working vacation plan of this kind, rather than just taking off for the ski slopes and planning on checking back in come autumn.

But really, the most important advice has already been given: talk to your advisor/DGS about this, now. If there are specific expectations for what students in your program do over the summer, or later milestones you'll need to use the summer to prepare for, you need to know about them before you make plans.
posted by RogerB at 2:00 PM on October 22, 2010

Yes, you definitely should find something that will parlay its way into a thesis or dissertation. Or get you a publication - a small article in an education journal? Summer is the time to get research done. Does your program require an internship? Summer might be the time to do it, or to network your way to a later one. (But do take a couple of short vacations to keep yourself from burning out.)
posted by Knowyournuts at 4:42 PM on October 22, 2010

Ok, so I see the logic of what almost everyone else is saying, but doing something academic over the summer isn't absolutely necessary. Life is not a race, and even if you could get an entire semester of credits done over the summer (unlikely given scheduling and other issues), whatever you do this summer likely won't help you finish sooner.

Every fall, for all 7 years of my MA and PhD experience, the first week of class was filled with people bemoaning how little work they actually got done over the summer. They wanted to finish 2 diss chapters or a language requirement or read the supplementary reading lists to their classes the previous semester. About 3-4 years into this cycle, I realized people don't really get *that* much done over the summer (at least the non-superstars of the department don't). So why not have an adventure and have something to talk about that first week back? So the summer after my comps, I rode my bike across the country. For 3 months. Coast-to-coast.

Yeah, some people finished faster than I did, but I doubt it was because of that summer. Some people will be slower than me finishing their degrees even though I know they're working hard. You can't always predict those things.

The funny thing was that the summer off helped me figure out what I really wanted to do research-wise, and I went in different directions with my studies than I would have otherwise. Since the research is connected to the trip (tangentially), it came up in nearly every interview. I think people on search committees for academic jobs must be bored with the process, but because I had interesting stories to tell and interesting connections between real life and research (and because I worked really hard when I was at school), I had plenty of job offers to choose from, even without a stellar publication record. So is doing something related to your degree the common-sensical thing to do? Probably. But then again, looking back you might find a hair-brained adventure was the thing to do. Plus, a long bike trip can be fairly cheap if you camp and cook along the way.

tl;dr: I think a summer adventure can be a very good thing.
posted by BlooPen at 9:57 PM on October 24, 2010