☀️ How to Have a Productive Summer Even Without an Internship

Happy summer everyone. Even to those who didn’t get an internship… don’t fret. Yes it’s not ideal, but it doesn’t mean you’re falling behind. Here’s how to use these months to build experience, expand your network, and set yourself up for next year.

🛠️ 1. Build a Project

What you lack in formal experience, you can make up for with a project.
👉 If you want to do marketing: Draft a campaign for a brand you love.
👉 If you want to do consulting: Analyze a company’s strategy and write a short case.
👉 If you want to be in finance: Analyze a publicly traded company’s financials.

👉 No matter what you are in: Experiment with AI platforms like ChatGPT, Lovable, Claude, etc… Use them to help you build projects, think through different ideas, etc… Trust me, this will be valuable.

Why? Projects show initiative and give you a concrete example to talk about in interviews.

🤝 2. Network — Without Being Awkward

Send 3–5 emails for informational interviews a week (Use my guide here!)
☑️ Be specific about why you admire the person.
☑️ Ask for a quick 15–20‑min chat.
☑️ Treat every conversation professionally.

Result? You build connections that can lead to referrals, future internships, or job offers.

📚 3. Learn a New Skill

There’s no excuse with platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and YouTube.
✅ Learn Excel or Figma.
✅ Get a certification in Google Analytics or Facebook Ads.
✅ Learn how to utilize AI platforms and tools.

Add these to your resume and LinkedIn, and suddenly that “no formal experience” line doesn’t matter as much.

💡 4. Do a Part‑Time Job or Volunteer

Even unrelated work can teach soft skills.
🍔 Barista or retail job? Learn teamwork, customer service, and sales.
🌳 Volunteer? Build connections and stories about resilience and initiative.

The point? Experience doesn’t have to be “official” to be valuable. People value hard work, especially in the real world as a waiter, host, or retail store employee. Even babysitting and lifeguarding. You show ambition and drive.

👉 The takeaway: Not having an internship doesn’t mean “no experience.” It means you have an open slate to create it yourself. Build a project. Learn a tool. Reach out to people doing the work you want to do.

Come fall, you’ll be able to say, “I didn’t get an internship, so I made one for myself” — and that’s a story every interviewer loves to hear.

Most of all, don’t feel behind and get discouraged. Seriously. It’s easy to compare yourself to your friend that may have an awesome internship, but the truth is that person won’t have the flexibility or the time to do what they want to do. If I were you, I would go all in on AI this summer. Become an expert.

If I were you, I would go all in on AI this summer. Become an expert. Take a course to learn how to use these AI tools extremely well. Experiment with them. Maybe even go to small businesses in your community and offer to help them use AI. That could be using Lovable.dev to make a new website for your local pizza shop or plumber. That could be using Superscale.AI to help create ads and content for your local sandwich shop.

All I’m saying… hands on AI experience will give you a leg up on everyone else.