When it comes to planning the future, I like to steer clear of timelines. Setting your own deadlines is pretty scary, I’ve learned. Unfortunately, it can’t always be avoided.

By spring break, I tell myself year after year, I will have a job ready and set for the summer. This has worked out only once.

And last year was not it. A few weeks after spring finals last year, I landed a job that I thought I would love as a poolside server. With just one day under my belt, I realized I was wrong.

The list of reasons why I was wrong is painfully long, but even worse than my minimum wage pay and stuffy uniform was the fact that all the other servers like me were in high school. Once we realized that we shared no common interests and that our range of conversation topics was extremely limited, we fixated on the closest subject: Tino, the cook.

Tino never spoke to me during my first week at work. We worked within feet of each other, he at the grill and me at the cash register, and if it weren’t for name tags, we might have actually had a real introduction at some point.

He was a tornado of spatulas and hot dog buns, and I stood on the periphery with my knee popped, chin in my hand – the pose that sent him into a frenzy all summer.

“Do somesing!” he’d yell with hand gestures so high-flown, he appeared to be caressing the statue of David. He was completely bald except for a stubbly goatee and two wiry bushes for eyebrows. And nothing could scrounge those eyebrows together in fury faster than a privileged white girl racking up paychecks for watching him sweat.

But I wanted to work, and badly. I’d rotate cans of pop in the refrigerator so that all the labels faced the front, spin the cans of Coors Light to showcase the mountains. I swept air. I washed clean tables. I covered all the clocks to preserve my sanity. And when I ran out of busy work, I’d ask people in the same ugly uniform to let me lend a hand in their busy work.

After a few scoldings, I came to hate Tino. His days off were my favorite days to work, but he only got one day off a week: Monday. Every other day of the week, he was there from open to close, grilling burgers, steaks and lazy girls.

Lunch breaks were timeouts for the tension, though. With our half hour off, Tino and I would sit together and, between bites of the fried food he cooked, talk about things we didn’t have in common. He lived alone; I lived with my family. He had more bills than fingers; my parents paid mine. For him, this job was his entire livelihood; for me, it was something I’d leave at the end of the summer and chalk up to a horror story.

I guess that’s the beauty of a summer job; knowing that it’s not forever. When I turned in my uniform at the end of the summer and picked up my last paycheck, I realized just how lucky I was to have somewhere else to be: college.

So no matter what kind of job you’re hoping to call your own this summer, start pounding the pavement. This year is the first year that I’ve met my own spring break deadline, and it’s a pretty good feeling. As students at one of the top universities in the nation, we have no shortage of opportunities. Take advantage of your references and resources. Even if you don’t snag your dream job (let’s be real), take what you can get. Experience isn’t only important on resumes.