I know what you did last summer: SU style

Syracuse University students across the country found ways to keep themselves busy this past summer, with activities ranging from internships to traveling, waitressing jobs to playing lawn games in their free time.

The NewsHouse talked Monday to dozens of students from different states, asking what they filled their summer days with. Activities varied from coast to coast, with no real pattern surfacing.

Photo: Illustration by Caitlin O'Donnell

Explore the USA

The map above includes photos and interviews highlighting the summer activities of more than 30 SU students. The location represents their hometown or where they were this summer.

The map was produced by Tara Donaldson, Emily Shearing, Heather Wentz, Chris Baker, Erin Elzo and Katrina Tulloch.

Dan Klamm, marketing and communications coordinator for the SU’s Career Services, said he’s not surprised.

“We have a very engaged, passionate student population,” he said. “It’s really common for them to be doing many different things as opposed to the same.”

Several students found themselves working jobs or internships over the summer months.

Alex Solimanto, a political science and broadcast journalism sophomore from Manchester, N.H., worked in customer service at an electric company. Brad Blackwell, a Ph.D student studying environmental engineering from Cheyenne, Okla., stayed in Syracuse to work.

Klamm said this is common for SU students, not only to stay busy, but to feel out the area of their potential career.

“It’s great to gauge an interest in what you might want to do. You might even find out that an area you wanted to work in is something you end up not liking at all,” he said.

Other students took a break from the daily grind, opting for more relaxing summers. Klamm said it’s good to take a break from being a full-time student, but recommends not doing anything for 40 hours a week.

For Ashley McConnell, not working was a new experience for her. The creative writing graduate student from Madison, Wisc., vacationed in Minneapolis.

“It was the first summer I hadn’t worked since I was 14. I read, biked, sat at the beach and did a little writing.”

For others, more simple joys got them through the months. Columbia, S.C., native Tenell Felder only had one thing to say.

“I graduated,” said the magazine, newspaper and online graduate student.