Walking out of the first Economics midterm of the year, I felt as stress-free as I’ve felt in a long time. I let my mind wander and think about going home next week for Spring Break, knowing I still had a lot of work to do before going home to Miami.

This month I’m particularly satisfied about completing plans for a few short-term projects. For example, my search for summer activities had been an anxious one. I wasn’t sure whether an internship, a job, or a study-abroad program would be the ideal way to spend my three-month break. In the end, I decided on an internship. This won’t be as rigorous as a job, but it nonetheless will provide me with pre-professional experience. And I can always study abroad later. I’ll be interning for a nonprofit organization in New York City that helps underserved children. Specifically, I’ll be helping influence public policy and writing advocacy papers, which will be useful training for my career aspirations in corporate law and business administration. Besides, I’ve never been to New York City before, and the opportunity to live there for an extended period of time is exciting.

In the short term, I’ll be working for the Harvard Admissions Office during Spring Break. The department is affiliated with a minority recruitment project, and they hired me to visit several schools in the Miami area and deliver presentations about the opportunities at Harvard and college life in general. I’m enthusiastic about this project, since it serves students who many times aren’t aware of flexible financial aid and affirmative action programs that make higher education possible. And because the majority of the population this project serves is immigrant, I believe that my contribution, as someone who also came to this country recently, will encourage prospective college students.

I also recently became a member of the Harvard College Consulting Group. With so many student organizations on campus, you have to learn to be selective so you don’t stretch yourself so much that you lose sight of priorities. What’s appealing about this group is its hands-on approach. It offers consulting services to small businesses in Cambridge, as well as to student groups and nonprofits. As a case analyst, I’m assigned to a team with specific responsibilities. I not only perform research and come up with viable strategies, but also help implement strategies. The last couple of weeks I’ve been busy attending training sessions covering our responsibilities within the organization, in public relations, and in the field of consulting.

I’ve also spent time rehearsing with the salsa dance team for an upcoming show and attending kickboxing and aerobics classes. I’ve learned to dedicate myself to only those activities that are fun and positive. In high school, there was a culture of joining extracurricular activities for the sake of a resume or prestige. Here in college, I feel like there’s more room to explore vocations and authentic interests, as trivial as these might be. For example, I’m not ashamed of setting aside two hours tomorrow to take part in the annual trivia contest with the complimentary pizza party. And I’m certainly not ashamed of finally deciding to open an account with Netflix—or of choosing Mary Poppins as my first delivery.

I’ll write again in a month, after Spring Break and my college presentations in Miami.