Final exams are almost over and the summer break is approaching. And while this is a cause for celebration, around this time of year I often have anxious students ask me for advice on how to make the most of their summer in order to benefit their future academic and/or career prospects.
My response: First, just make sure you do something! (I.e. don’t sit at home watching TV…). Second, no matter what you are doing, try to maximize your skills development and connections with others who share your interests and/or can be mentors to you.
In my experience, what specifically you do matters less than how you use it. However, it can be useful to tailor your approach to the summer break according to where you are in your undergraduate academic journey and what you aim to do after graduation.
Read on for my guide on how to make the most of your summer, while also having fun in the process.
Option 1: Get Research Experience
If you aim to go to graduate school, getting research experience through working with a faculty member as a research assistant on their project can be a great boost to your personal statement and CV, as well as an opportunity to cultivate connections who can write you strong, personalized recommendation letters in future.
The best way to find these opportunities is simply to approach professors at your school who are in your field and ask them if they have research openings over the summer. (I know this can be daunting, but trust me faculty are very used to receiving these kinds of requests, and the worst thing that can happen is that they say no.) Sweeten the request by reading some of their research papers and saying what you found interesting about them.
Another option is to look for advertised research assistant (RA) opportunities, either through your school’s Careers Services or Student Work department, or by looking online.
Once you land that opportunity try to maximize your skills development alongside doing your assigned work (as an RA myself many years ago, I learned a huge amount from watching YouTube videos about how to do statistical analysis, and became a much more efficient and in-demand RA as a result!).
Also, try to enjoy the experience. Reach out to your fellow RAs to go for lunch and hang out after the day’s work is over. Celebrate what you’ve learned or achieved by bringing snacks to the lab, library, or team meetings.
And, if you have made a big contribution to the project (for example one of your ideas or findings was taken forward and helped shape your team leader’s research paper), don’t hesitate to ask if you can be named as an author on the paper. Getting your name on academic research will really boost your graduate school application, although it’s not a must-have, and is more common in the natural sciences (where papers with multiple authors are the norm) than in other disciplines.
Finally, keep notes about your contributions to the project (you won’t remember everything you did several months later), and at the end of your RA project, ask faculty you worked with if they would be willing to write a recommendation letter in future. That way, it’ll be much easier to reach out later when the time comes.
Option 2: Find an Internship
If you want to go into the corporate sector after college, finding an internship can be more valuable than working on faculty research projects, as it allows you to test out an industry or company that you are interested in in a low-stakes way, while also making connections and developing new business-oriented skills.
To find internship opportunities, your school’s Career Services department is the obvious starting point. However, you can also go to networking events nearby (especially if you are in or near a big city like Shanghai, Beijing, or Shenzhen). Joining clubs like Toastmasters (a public speaking and leadership organization) can also help you build connections that lead to professional opportunities.
(Tip for non-Chinese students: you are legally allowed to do an internship on a student visa in China, but be aware there are certain bureaucratic procedures that need to be followed. These are tedious but necessary – it’s always best to do things by the book to avoid any implications for future visa applications in China).
During your internship, as well as (obviously) working hard, do your best to learn and network as much as you can. Observe your more senior colleagues, and don’t be afraid to ask them for advice about how and why they do things (in general, people love giving advice – after all, it makes them feel good too!).
Build your LinkedIn profile, and add your colleagues and other professionals that you encounter during your internship on LinkedIn (and if you plan to stay in China after graduation, do the same on WeChat). Use LinkedIn and/or WeChat as a platform to share new things you learned, contributions you have made, and projects you’ve worked on (where appropriate – and if you’re not sure what’s appropriate to share, ask someone approachable yet more experienced than you).
I also suggest asking your managers and colleagues to write you a LinkedIn recommendation – these can really help boost your online professional profile (and again, don’t be nervous about asking, it’s a very normal request that people are used to receiving).
Finally, ask for formal written letters of recommendation from your line manager and/or team leader just before the end of your internship. For internships, it’s much better to do this now, rather than to ask in six months or a year only to find that person has moved on to a different role or company, or doesn’t remember the details of your specific work.
Option 3: Give Back and Learn by Volunteering
Volunteering can be extremely valuable and fulfilling for students who want to do something socially useful while also building skills and connections.
There are plenty of paid volunteer opportunities out there (just Google “volunteer in China”), but if the idea of paying a company to find you a volunteering position does not appeal, reach out to local NGOs or charities (LinkedIn and WeChat are both great ways of doing this) and see if they have any openings. Your school Careers Services may also have links to charities or other organizations looking for volunteers.
Likewise, if you already have a network on WeChat or other social media, don’t hesitate to post that you are looking for volunteering opportunities – at best, you’ll be flooded with offers, and even if you’re not, posting that you want to help your community simply can’t hurt.
Similar advice to research and internship positions also applies to volunteering. Use the time to develop your skill-set (for example, learn how to Photoshop or Canva to design great informational or marketing materials for a charity), and add connections that you meet on LinkedIn, WeChat, and other platforms that you find professionally and/or socially useful. Reach out to your team leaders for recommendations.
Incidentally, volunteering can also be a rewarding and fun thing to do on weekends or evenings outside of your regular study or work. For example, check out this picture of me volunteering at a local animal shelter in Suzhou:
Option 4: Travel!
You will likely never have as much time again in your life (at least until retirement) to travel. So, if doing research, an internship, or volunteering does not appeal, seize the opportunity!
This is a particularly great option for students just finishing their first year of undergraduate study, where the pressure of post-grad applications and/or the after-school job search is minimal, and the returns to growing your independence and life-skills are very high.
(Tip: the Glopen YouTube Channel is a great place to find inspiration for travel destinations in China).
Make the most of your travel experience by going somewhere far away and culturally different from where you are studying. China is a huge and diverse place, so if your university is in southern China, go north and see how differently things are done. Likewise, if you’re on the east coast, go north or west where life is generally slower and more traditional compared to booming coastal cities like Shanghai.
In addition, try to connect with local people and fellow travelers. I have two main tips for doing this. First, while it can be tempting to fly or take the super-convenient high speed rail, riding China’s old “green trains” is a great and really affordable way of meeting people who you wouldn’t otherwise encounter.
Travelers on green trains are often much more willing to chat (on the high speed rail, on the other hand, 95% of people are reading their phones…). And, due to their low cost, green trains are often used migrant workers and small-scale entrepreneurs returning to their hometown or going to a new location, and their stories can be fascinating.
Second, if you can speak Chinese, use local apps such as Dazhong Dianping to find day tours in which a guide puts together small (usually 3-4 people) last-minute groups of tourists to visit a specific location. Both whoever you end up spending the day with and the guide themselves usually have great stories that you can learn from while having fun in the process.
(For example, once while on one of these day tours to grasslands in Inner Mongolia, I found myself taking photos in a nearby quarry pretending to be astronauts on the moon, alongside a businessman from Guangdong and two students from Anhui province who had suggested the photo opportunity for our small group – unexpected but certainly memorable!).
A day trip in Inner Mongolia I took using Dazhong Dianping in 2023 (including the unexpected “astronaut” photos…).
Conclusion: Get Out There!
So long as you do something with your summer instead of staying home watching TV or playing video games, you will learn new skills and make new connections. So, my main advice is to just get out there, whether that’s doing a research project, an internship, contributing to the community by volunteering, or traveling (or a combination of these).
At the same time, make sure to use whatever you do build your network and keep learning, whether that’s understanding China better by going to a different province, becoming an expert in data gathering, or uncovering an unexpected talent for photo-editing.
Most of all, remember that your undergraduate summers are some of the best opportunities for both fun and personal development that you’ll have in your lifetime, so savor them.
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