Me working on this article instead of summer internship applications.
The prime season for summer internship applications has already passed, and if you forgot to apply or weren’t good enough and got denied, don’t worry. Here are just a few of the many reasons you shouldn’t be agonizing about getting an internship over the summer…
1.) Laziness: I think we can all attest that the best thing to do is nothing at all. But if we look into simple physics, we see that work is quite the opposite of nothing: something. And who in their right mind would ever want to do something? Laziness is deeply ingrained in our culture. We see this in the saying “work smarter, not harder,” so why not just throw out the “working” part altogether? Instead of gaining valuable workplace experience, you could be binging the new season of "Ugly Betty" while shoving Funyuns in your food hole. The haters may say, “But 'Ugly Betty' ended in 2010,” but let’s take a lesson from Taylor here and remember that the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. So, shake it off and don’t do anything this summer, you good-for-nothing piece of garbage.
2.) The Struggle of the Proletariat: Just like housing loans and North Dakota, internships are merely an invention by the bourgeoisie to sustain their oppressive system. Through the system of internships, they restock their ranks while keeping the proletariat far removed from the means of production. Anyone well-versed in the intricacies of Marxist ideology knows that the revolution is coming. The bourgeoisie will be overthrown soon, so there is no reason to try to join them now. Unless you want to be strung up by the entrails of the bankers, join the working class instead and have the only thing you lose be your chains.
3.) Workplace Drama: Did you hear about how Jonathan and Carol hooked up in the supply closet last week? Did you want to? If you’re not particularly interested in hearing how Martha from accounting had an affair or how Brian in human resources is getting a divorce, you could always just stay away from the water cooler; but you’re a human, and you need water to survive. Now, you may ask, “does this really happen?” As someone who has seen a multitude of workplace comedies, I can assure you it does. You know where you can get water without being exposed to all the rumors about the sexual tension between your boss and her secretary? From your sink, in your house, without an internship.
4.) Money: Although paid internships do exist, you probably won’t get one. No one’s going to pay some idiot college student in currency when they can pay them in experience—experience, of course, meaning experience in going on Starbucks runs and learning how to use the copier whose language was set to Japanese. This “experience” is ultimately useless, only having the value we assign to it, but this is also true of money. Money, however, can buy happiness. People who say money can’t buy everything have obviously never bought cocaine—I mean, candy. Internships won’t ever get you any of that sweet, sweet powder, so get a job instead. Sure, working with mindless customers is worse than working with mindless businesspeople, but at least you can buy some dumb stuff from Amazon or something.
5.) The Death of God: Nietzsche’s prophesized collapse of societal values and authority has led humanity to a nihilist, pleasure-centric mindset ignorant of any true value in living. We see this in the monotonous life of the businessperson: working a job they don’t like, settling to marry someone they don’t love, and trying to fill their void with so many material goods as purposeless as themselves. The internship is not the first step towards this life (or death), but it is a step, and it may be your last chance to escape into something that actually matters. Don’t get an internship, and run while you can.
Foran is a Mathematics and Philosophy Major as well as the Sass Section Editor. Contact him at jwf54@georgetown.edu if you want to give him an internship. Please.
Photo Credit: Olivia Hanner.