Confessions of a Psycho UG Junior

As I begin to write this post in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I still wonder from time to time, “What the f*** are you doing?”

In the upcoming year, I am proud to say that I will be a rising junior at one of the best undergraduate business schools in the US and simultaneously will be tormented by the deathly on-campus recruiting (OCR) process for IB summer internships.

While my fellow prisoners are racking up as much finance internship experience as possible at investment banks, PE, and such, I am working at a very small startup while feeling lost in a country where I cannot even speak the language (four years of Spanish in high school just doesn’t cut it).

Indeed, my friends either look at me as a daring adventurer or a naïve fool. But hey, you never know what kind of opportunities life brings you when you are least expecting right?

Following the end of my sophomore year, I felt like I wanted to get out of everything, try new things, and face new challenges and experiences I have never met before. Moreover, I feared that if I do not go on my adventure now, I would not be able to so for a while after I enter my professional career. With that thought lingering in the back of my head, I ended up rejecting two finance internship opportunities back home, packed my bags, and flew over to BA.

After approximately five out of my nine weeks here, I have fallen in love with this city, the people and my internship opportunity. I have travelled across the nation to visit wineries, walked boldly into Argentine bars to make friends with people who can barely converse with me in Spanish or English, and helped push forward a startup from its seed stage. The experience, undeniably, has matured me both professionally and personally. Meeting people from different backgrounds and working with passionate entrepreneurs have given me eye-opening experiences.

While this is true, I would be lying if I were never hesitant about my time here; as expected, I am still overwhelmed by my fear that I may not have the best shot at excellent IB junior summer internships next year. While my friends are modeling and analyzing, I am networking, eating steak, drinking wine and immersing myself in a new country. The thought of falling behind my friends sometimes worry me but at one point, I have decided to turn that thought around and utilize this experience to my advantage.

If there is one advice I would like offer to others, it is, don’t be afraid to take sufficient time to explore yourself. Step out of the mundane life to make something out of the time you have. After all, assessing yourself before venturing out to fulfill your aspirations should be encouraged at all times. Most importantly, having fear and worrying about the future is natural. At least for me, I have made a decision to embrace that fear and use this time to explore the unknowns by allowing myself to experience the diversity. By the end of my nine weeks in Argentina, I am hoping to take the valuable lessons I have learned here back home and apply them in the future. Who knows? Maybe the recruiters will like that too. In the end, no time is wasted if you use it wisely.

What do you think?