I’m spending the summer before my junior year of college sitting at home in the suburbs with my family (including my adorable 16-month-old brother). This isn’t exactly what I had planned on doing this summer. I applied for two medical research internships but didn’t get either. I applied for an unpaid position mentoring at-risk middle-schoolers and was told I would have gotten it if the program hadn’t been canceled due to lack of funding a week before it was to begin. I wanted to volunteer at the children’s hospital, but they stopped taking applications before I got home from school (which is over 2,000 miles away from where I live). I considered applying for minimum wage jobs, but seeing my friend who has much more experience in food service apply to literally dozens of places without getting a single call back made me accept that I wouldn’t be making money this summer. I sort of regret not staying near my college over the summer since I would have had a much easier time finding a job or internship, but at least I get to spend more time with my family. My mom’s actually the one who introduced me to MTurk, so now it’s another thing we can bond over. I’m not exactly sure how medical schools will view “turking with my mom” as an explanation of how I spent my summer, but at least it will give me enough money to buy a book to prepare for the MCAT.