How to Structure Your Junior Year Summer

It’s easy to forget your responsibilities during the summer, but creating a simple plan goes a long way

Anika Sanka, Co-Editor-in-Chief

May 1, 2025

Beautiful summer photo taken at Clearwater Beach

Junior year is not a joke. It’s long, hard and simultaneously mentally and physically tiring. During those last harrowing spring months when you’re fighting through AP exams, varied extracurriculars and a tirade of ‘where do you want to go to college’ based questions, the only thing you want to do during the summer is lie on the beach and have fun with your friends. Well, I’m sad to say that this might not be the best option.

Yes, the last couple of summers, you could get away with basically doing nothing the whole summer and then cramming for the last couple of weeks to get all your summer work done. However, if you continue this same pattern, there might finally be some long-lasting consequences.

Summer presents the perfect opportunity for juniors to get a head start on college applications, if you’re planning on applying. Some of the more specific essay prompts from the CommonApp (Common Application) will be released at the beginning of August, nevertheless, you can easily get your personal statement, activities list and recommendation letters out of the way.

A personal statement is an essay typically around 500 words that allows you to showcase your unique qualities, interests and experiences to college admissions. Simply having an idea of what you want to write or creating an outline can be tremendously helpful in the college application process, as a typical student weakness is the lack of experience writing about oneself.

If you’re completely unsure of what to write your personal statement about, your junior year summer is also a great time to participate in an experience you could write about. Internships, volunteer opportunities or programs are all good ways to do this.

Junior year and junior summer are something college admissions generally focus on, specifically wanting to see if you’re taking purposely harder classes and participating in notable opportunities. Doing absolutely nothing all summer doesn’t really send the message that you’re a hard worker or have goals, and additionally will make that transition back into the whirlwind of school and college applications that much more difficult.

Nevertheless, I still want to emphasize the importance of balance. It goes the same for the other way, if you just work work work 24/7 all summer, you’re going to come back to school burned out and hating life. You can’t pack it full and never give yourself a break; the best way for me is to do a week on, a week off. Spend one week volunteering and then the next hanging out with your friends— it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Spend the summer having fun, but end it feeling accomplished and prepared for the upcoming school year. I know it’s easier said than done, but hold yourself accountable, and trust me, it’ll pay off.

Donate to Knight Writers

$400

$1500

Contributed

Our Goal

Your donation will support the student journalists of Robinson High School - FL. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs.

About the Contributor

Anika Sanka, Features Editor

Anika Sanka is a junior at Robinson and this is her second year on staff. This year, she will be serving as the Knight Writer’s features editor. She is an active club member at Robinson, acting as the vice president of the book club and the donation head for the clothes for kids club. She also runs for the Robinson track team outside of school. Sanka says one of the things she really likes about the Robinson track team is its structure. “Running doesn’t really seem that hard, but just motivating yourself to go on a run when you could just be sitting at home is hard,” Sanka said. “That and the team, it’s always more fun to do stuff with friends.” After growing up reading the newspaper regularly, Sanka joined the staff to have fun while learning, and she says it has been very beneficial to her writing over the years. “It’s really easy to get writers block, and this just helps you. The more you practice, the better you are, the easier it’ll come,” Sanka said. “I think it’s really helped me expand my writing skills.” Her goals for this year are to create an exceptionally good print issue for the paper. Outside of school, Sanka’s hobbies include reading good books, baking, swimming recreationally, and running to a fun playlist. “I think it makes me more efficient, sometimes, if I just come home and I’m trying to do my homework, I have a hard time focusing. If I do something else before, and don’t go straight into that, it helps me focus,” Sanka said. Her plans for after high school include attending college and going into pre-law. “There’s so many different kinds of things you can do,” Sanka said regarding the pre-law track, “you could do business, you could just be in meetings all day, or you could be talking to people about how to get their green card. I just like that there’s so many different ways you can use your degree.”