As the school year nears its end, students become increasingly concerned with the success of their peers. “What are you doing this summer?” is often heard in conversations across campus and everybody is updating their resume; this is the time of internships and job offers.

What college students do during their summers is vital to their professional futures. Even as freshmen, many parents are overwhelming their college students with stress about where, when and how they are planning to obtain internships.

Meanwhile, friends and classmates who have scored awesome internships are loud and proud about their accomplishments.

“I’m soooo excited to accept an aerospace engineering internship with NASA this summer in Washington, D.C!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” says your humble-bragging friend on Facebook. It is hard to hold back jealousy when you feel like your peers are exceeding you.

A lack of concrete summer plans makes the constant hounding to find an internship by professors, departmental advisors and parents even more stressful. Thus, many students become anxious and overwhelmed because of the weight of expectations this time of year.

Jealousy is a stress response that is only heightened when feeling anxious. A combination of fear and anger come together to create that jealous feeling in the pit of your stomach, and it’s even worse when the people you feel jealous of are your friends.

When you are feeling this way, you are not only holding yourself back from succeeding in the future by wallowing in self pity, but you are also hurting a relationship with a friend that deserves a happy “congratulations” at this time.

Students who aren’t getting internships often feel they’re falling behind those who have because they aren’t receiving the multitude of benefits that a summer internship gives a college student.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers found in an annual survey that 95 percent of employers said candidate experience is a factor in hiring decisions. And almost half of those surveyed employers additionally wanted new-grad experience to come from an internship or other program.

Besides outshining competitors applying to the same job as you are, internships help you develop real life skills in your field, give you confidence that this career path is the right one for you, network and build your resume.

All of these things are true; however, for some majors, internships are not nearly as critical.

“I am sometimes jealous because (my friends) are getting actual internships but I’m an Actuarial Science major and I’m just focusing on passing my next two exams,” Emilio Cabrera, sophomore in Actuarial Science said. “I have to get over (my jealousy) and just think about my potential future.”

Whether or not internships are important on your path to a career, don’t let negative feelings about other people’s successes get you down. Everyone has their own path.

It’s hard to watch your friends earn awesome opportunities if you’re sitting at home and continuously applying for summer jobs you don’t want. But your success will come if you work hard enough, and you’ll want your friends to be happy for you.

“Try not to be jealous of people because all it does is drag you down,” Prem Bheda, senior in MCB said.

Jealousy is a miserable feeling, but you shouldn’t let it eat at you. Use your friends’ successes as motivation to work harder at improving yourself.

Schedule meetings with your advisor to discuss ways you can raise your chances of finding internships down the line. Pad your resume with volunteering — not only is it good for you, it’s also good for the community. Attend career fairs and workshops to create a network of people connected with your major whom you can contact in the future.

Nothing positive comes from feeling jealous. The best way to get over jealousy of this kind is to let it fuel you to try and work harder in order to reach your goals.

Leah is a freshman in Media.?

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