A Young Entrepreneur's Guide to a Meaningful Summer
As warmer weather and sunny skies begin to dominate the forecast, it can only mean one thing: students everywhere will soon be boasting about their summer programs, jobs, and internships. Yet this onslaught of titles and positions can make many of us overlook the importance of informal, exploratory learning. Indeed, it is often these experiences that help young people discover what truly excites them. This raises an important question: what can a young, aspiring entrepreneur do over the summer without any formal experience?
The simplest answer is to start something of your own. For example, many teenagers spend their summers tutoring, babysitting, or walking dogs. While these opportunities may seem less glamorous than a neighbor’s impressive internship, they can be far more valuable in teaching initiative and independence. Reaching out to families in your community to offer childcare or tutoring services may feel intimidating at first, but it teaches important lessons in communication, confidence, and perseverance. Likewise, watching your tutee slowly grasp mathematical concepts is incredibly gratifying, and provides a sense of accomplishment that a traditional job likely could not offer.
Another increasingly accessible opportunity is enrolling in free online college courses. Many universities, including Harvard, offer online courses that students of any age can take. For instance, Harvard offers over 130 courses, which is paralleled by schools like MIT, Stanford, and Yale. These courses span across every discipline, from economics to biology or literature.
Beyond structured courses, however, lies perhaps the most underrated summer activity of all: reading. A young entrepreneur who spends summer devouring books is slowly developing a broad, unique understanding of the world. Reading is one of the best ways to prepare a young entrepreneur for the future. Here, it is worth addressing the pressure that students so often place on themselves to have something impressive to show for their summers. An entrepreneurial mindset is not built by certificates or titles alone. The teenager who babysits and saves diligently, who finishes an online course out of genuine curiosity, or who strikes up a conversation with a local shop owner is genuinely building their entrepreneurial mind, perhaps in a more valuable way than the student who sits at a desk for a month.
Or you could pursue an even more exciting opportunity and begin writing for the Girls Who Start publication. After all, the possibilities of summer are endless.
