3 Things You Should And Should Not Do During This Pandemic

It is a warm, sunny day in April. You are preparing for your final exams, which are due to take place in a few weeks’ time. As your friends are getting emails regarding the rescinding of their internship offers one after another, you glanced over at your email inbox and breathed a sigh of relief. You thought you were the sole exception… until you hear a *ding* and see the dreaded notification titled: “Withdrawal of Internship Offer”. What do you do now?

This post goes out to all those undergraduates who are struggling to find internships or had their opportunities cut off abruptly because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This article encapsulates my personal thoughts and experiences about what students who are in a similar situation should do (and should not do), in the hopes of offering a comforting voice to those who may need one.

Do Not Panic

Credits: Jasmin Sessler

This may seem obvious, but trust me, it is by far one of the most difficult tasks I have personally struggled with since the start of this pandemic.

When the reality of potentially being unemployed for the entire summer break starts to set in, the first knee-jerk reaction would probably be to panic. And this is normal! It is perfectly fine to panic for a while, but don’t let this panic totally engulf you and blur your judgements on what you should do next.

One of the most common mistakes that people often make is to immediately run to your laptop and randomly apply for more internships, even those which may not be of any interest to them (because more applications means higher chances right?) By blindly sending in their resume and cover letters without curating their content to the company they are applying to, employers can easily see one thing that you absolutely don’t want them to see of you: that you are desperate and that you are mass sending out your applications without a second thought.

Panicking will thus set off a series of chain reactions, many of which will not be beneficial to you at all. So TLDR, don’t panic. Sit down, take a deep breath, and think carefully about your next steps. Only then will you make an informed decision and not look back and think: “Why on earth did I do that? What was I thinking?”

Do Not Compare Yourself To Others

Source: Clay Banks

Another very common mistake would be to compare, compare, compare. When we compare ourselves to others, would we be happier if we realised we are lacking in so many ways? Would we feel more at ease when we realised that we have an advantage in certain aspects?

Weirdly enough, even if we do know that it will not make us any happier (it will actually make us more insecure than ever), we still do it on a daily basis.

I am certainly guilty of this myself. Since the start of the pandemic, I often asked people if they had secured an internship position, and when they said yes, I would congratulate them and proceed to feel terrible about myself. Even if I knew I would be super demoralised, I still do it because I can’t help it. It is simply in the human nature to compare ourselves to others, but it is also equally important to be aware that this is a harmful habit.

Moreover, what good does it yield to us? Not only does it make us feel terrible about ourselves, it is also not a fair gauge of our abilities. The people we are comparing ourselves to will never have the same background as us, will never have the same abilities and capabilities as us, and will never have the exact same interests as us. They may succeed better at different things simply because of their different drives, motivations and conditions spurring them on.

Thus, comparing ourselves to others will only result in nothing but negative consequences, so we should all make an effort to stop this bad habit and devote our time to better improve ourselves.

Acquire New Skills

Source: David Travis

Rather than comparing ourselves to each other and drowning in negative emotions, why not devote more time to acquire new skills and increase our prospects of getting employed in the future?

This is also an excellent and optimal time to find out what really interests us, regardless of our majors, and work on improving them. This will most likely be outside of what you already have expertise in (your majors), and is purely pursuing what you have not done before but are curious about, such as photography or programming etc.

Drawing on my own personal experiences, despite being a Political Science major, I used this time to really explore what other fields/industries I may be interested in. As a result, I have devoted my time to learn Adobe Photoshop to improve on my photo-editing skills, as well as take the courage to delve into the unknown Digital Marketing field. It was extremely daunting at first, but it had indeed proved worthwhile at the end.

This is often a severely understated step, as most students at this stage would not be 100% clear of what they intend to do in the future (I’m one perfect example). What better time to do this now when we are all confined to our homes?

Easier Said Than Done

Source: Emily Morter

Taking the first step is often the most difficult task in this process, but once it’s taken, the battle is already half won.

Take for example this article. I have been meaning to start writing this since the beginning of this month, but procrastination got the better of me! Once I really sat my butt down to get this started, my motivation level increased by two-folds and it was so much easier to get my journey started.

This is an unprecedented moment that none of us students were expecting. Don’t beat yourself up too much over it and instead work on improving your skills and gaining an edge over your potential competitors. Stop comparing yourselves to others, everyone is different and what matters is your own growth.

Start somewhere, you definitely won’t regret it.