It is always with shame that I answer the inevitable question about my summer plans. At various points in the past few months almost everybody I know has asked me the age-old, gruelling question: so, what are you up to this summer?

All are well-meaning, I’m sure, eager to marvel at the thrilling programme they expect me to unveil: an internship somewhere important, or travel plans I’ve drafted with the aid of college grant money and the bank of mummy and daddy (which, for many of us, myself included, does not exist). They imagine three months spent interrailing: flashes of youthful frivolity to recite in Michaelmas when normality restores itself. They anticipate adventure, or productivity, something to prove my worth as a Cambridge student, who must be constantly on the go. After all, it is no surprise that expectations for our exceptionality leak into the supposed summer ‘break’. We cannot simply rest – we must do.

“Us Cambridge students are moulded perfectly for this lifestyle of do-do-do”

So, what people don’t anticipate is my faltering smile, my stutter, my itch to frown, when the topic of summer arises. Oh, I don’t have too much lined up, I say. I promise I don’t intend to sound self-deprecating, but it’s difficult not to when I see their smile wane when I sheepishly admit I’m just trying to apply to retail positions. I throw in a quip to alleviate the stiffness that seizes the both of us: I’m excited to finally read for pleasure, too! Cue the relieved laughter — she’s a Cambridge student after all! A reminder that I’m still worthy of the same respect as any other student, regardless of my shameful lack of professional opportunity and my three-time rejection from Aldi.

Trust me when I say that I am terribly, painfully, agonisingly aware this is my last Cambridge summer before graduation. I can feel the time weigh on me in the same manner I imagine it does on an old man whose hips are giving up on him. Each time I wake up in my childhood bedroom and not in a hostel somewhere prettier than Plymouth, each time I check my phone and there seems to be yet another coursemate catapulted somewhere far-flung and interesting (Portugal, Albania, Hong Kong), I am reminded of my sorry state. LinkedIn notifications swell by the day with collegemates remarking how they’re so pleased to announce… or so thankful for the opportunity…

“If you ask me, a summer wasted is one spent doing something you don’t enjoy”

But I don’t scorn them. Rather, my jealousy turns itself inward. I should not have dug myself into overdraft. I should not have been born poor. I should not have slacked during internship-applying season, even though I know I don’t really want one at all, and I’d much rather spend the summer sewing, sleeping, reading. I should want to do more than rest. I am aware that I may never be so free and well-supported as I am right now. The need to take advantage of this perpetually looms over me. Take a travel grant and skate across Western Europe. Fling yourself into corporate for a month without pay, just for credentials. Do not waste the summer, if it is possible for a summer to be wasted.

But here lies my problem. Can we really liken time to milk left out too long to curdle, or to money thrown on a pair of shoes that breaks upon the third wear? It is no secret that in our fast-paced, capitalist society, every moment has its price. You could spend a day reading in bed, taking tea with family, setting out for a midday walk and turning in early. Or you could spend it circling back (whatever that means) with your corporate team, networking in the evenings, working on a side hustle come night-time. LARPing as a real-world, high-flying adult, and not just a student on your long vacation. Us Cambridge students are moulded perfectly for this lifestyle of do-do-do. Term workloads are notoriously unrelenting. With the bottomless pit of reading and essay writing, and there is always more of anything we could be doing at any given time. It is no surprise, then, that so many of us give into the notion that we must take full advantage of our summers and push ourselves to our productivity limits.

My shame is thus more a socially conditioned response than a true reflection of my feelings. If you ask me, a summer wasted is one spent doing something you don’t enjoy. Would I prefer an internship at a company I don’t care for, or a few months spent balancing retail and picking back up the threads of old hobbies now that I no longer feel the need to seize every moment to further my academic career? Even despite the baggage of work I must shoulder whilst my peers zip around the world, it is due to be a slow summer for me. I believe – after six months cooped up in an institution which runs (no, sprints) at such a dizzying pace that it is common to sacrifice sleep for work, to pivot from activity to activity, place to place – a slow summer is precisely what is needed for rest. Rest. That little word, so little it must sound unimpressive to the typical busybody Cambridge student, is far more important than term-time would have us believe. So while some among us may hold the privilege of internships, corporate networking, or afternoon aperols in Italy, at least I can say, when things resume again in October, that I have acquired something few Cambridge students possess.