American universities generally start their holidays in the first or second week of May, and don't start school until the last week of August or even early September. What are American college students doing in this nearly four-month summer vacation? In the first semester, I had the opportunity to talk with more than 20 student assistants and learn about their summer life. Write it down as a microcosm of the overall summer life of American college students. A few students choose to choose courses from May to June. Most American universities have summer semesters, which usually last eight to ten weeks. During this period, the school will offer some popular courses in spring and autumn semesters for students who change majors or want to graduate early. Some students either choose to stay in school to study courses, or choose to go home to study courses with the same academic level in the nearest school, and then transfer their credits back to their own universities. No matter whether you choose courses or not, American college students will work in the summer, and the nature of their work varies with their personal achievements, majors and future plans. Students who have just finished grade one have all kinds of jobs. Some students are determined to go to medical school after graduation, so they began to apply for summer internship positions in doctors' clinics, ambulance teams and hospitals at the beginning of the year. Such positions are highly competitive, some are paid, and some are purely volunteers, mainly to have relevant work experience and industry reference in their resumes when applying for medical schools in the future. Medical schools in the United States have high requirements for admission and fierce competition. Relevant work experience and recommendation letters from practitioners are important reference factors for admission. The same situation also appears in the legal profession. Yaya's father only has a summer internship position, but nearly 70 students who plan to take the law school have applied. Some of them plan to enter American state institutions in the future, and most of them aim to apply for summer internships specially set up by the government. One of my student assistants was hired as a summer intern by the Pentagon. According to her, the salary is high. Besides paying for the whole summer, she also went to the seaside for a week. She particularly emphasized to me that money is not the most important thing. It is important to confirm that this is my future career, exercise my ability and establish the necessary connections, which is very important for finding a job in the future. In addition to considering their future studies and employment, some people work in the summer vacation purely to make money. A student works two jobs every day, working as a lifeguard in the swimming pool during the day and as a waiter in the bar at night. According to him, there are many tips for working at night. Although it was very hard, he still saved some money, so that on the one hand, he could borrow less loans for school and reduce the burden on his parents. Although his parents are not rich, they try their best to help their children pay part of the tuition fees, while the poor children take charge early. This student is also the most responsible and sensible of all my student assistants, especially knowing how to plan ahead. He belongs to the kind of student who will consider the second step or even the third step if you tell him one step. Students who have finished the second and third grades choose to do scientific research for a period of time. After finishing the second grade, especially after finishing the third grade, most people have a clear idea of their future planning. Those who don't plan to go to graduate school will continue to work as before, establishing contacts for those who want to go to graduate school or simply making money, while those who want to go to graduate school have begun to consider doing some scientific research and publishing an article to increase their weight for being admitted to graduate school or even getting scholarships. American universities often have government-funded undergraduate research projects in summer, the most famous of which is "undergraduate research experience", which is abbreviated as Reu (undergraduate research experience) in English. I applied for this project myself. Applicants can be intercollegiate or undergraduate. The key is to have your own unique ideas about the topics in the project. REU was discussed and accepted by a special selection committee. Once you are hired, you will usually pay a research scholarship of eight to ten weeks, which is relatively high and can ensure you to concentrate on your research. If you can come up with a conference or published article, it will be very important for applying for graduate school, especially for students who are about to apply for Ma Sheng's fourth grade. In addition to American universities, the research departments of the American government and military also have similar summer internship positions focusing on research, and some big companies also have such positions, such as the R&D department of DuPont, where I once worked. It is conceivable that if you can get such a position in the summer and perform well, the chances of working in these units or further study will increase a lot after graduation. Of course, if these projects can't get in, some students choose tutors to do volunteer research out of interest or need. Of course, they have to work to pay their own expenses, but it doesn't rule out the possibility that a good tutor decides to pay some salary in the future. As an American proverb says, "the most important thing is to be able to step in with one foot, so that they will have a chance to walk in the door." Vacation travel, summer vacation and travel are a luxury for many students. Because American college students are all adults, most of them will not go out to play with their parents, so if they want to go out to play, either their parents will pay for their children as gifts, or they will earn enough money by working themselves and ask some friends to go out to play. My student assistants all went out to play in the summer vacation, some stayed in the hotel canteen by the sea, and some went for a picnic and camping in the mountains. They did what they could with more money, but they never lost heart. Now that school has started, these students have all returned to school, studying and arranging reasonable time to continue to work as teaching assistants in various courses in our department. They earned living expenses, accumulated work experience, and wrote it on their resumes, which will be an influential weight for finding jobs and applying for graduate studies in the future. After reading this, you can imagine that by the time they graduate, most of these children are very mature in self-care and self-reliance, and they are also quite experienced in job hunting procedures. They are more aware of their interests and goals, have thick resumes and have some connections. By this time, their comprehensive stamina will begin to appear whether they are working or studying. Now more and more college students from China are entering American universities. Most of them get excellent grades and concentrate on their studies, hoping to find a good job in the future. But the reality is that these China college students are often called "nerds" by American students. They are not independent in their studies since childhood and are afraid of wasting their study time. Therefore, they have no team spirit and don't care about reality and politics.