academic worries

Less than one month until school starts again! Yay. I'm excited but also nervous... I'm going to be a junior in college. That is quite scary. I feel worried because it seems like I have not made the most of the first two years of college. I haven't done anything!

It's like this... In high school there were always a fair few students going on to the Ivy League each year, and it seemed to me at least that there was this kind of ever-present pressure to Succeed, which mostly meant getting into a good college. Everyone was stressed about gathering extracurricular activities, leadership positions, and perfect grades, to put on college applications. Every time a student received an acceptance letter from a famous college, the jealousy, worry, feelings of inadequacy, etc., would brew.

So, I did a lot of extracurricular activities that I didn't care about and actually quite disliked, just to make my applications look good. Teachers wanted me to go to a fancy college because I got good grades, was known for original ideas & creativity and whatnot. And I got accepted to the fancy liberal arts schools that I had dreamed about. But then I did the "unthinkable" - I went to my safety school. I turned down the semi-impressive names and enrolled in the huge state university. I did it mostly because of financial issues - I didn't want to graduate in debt with tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, and I also didn't want to ask my parents to make huge sacrifices to send me to a fancy school. But the smaller, nagging reason why I made that choice was: I was just tired. I was so sick of the competition and the race to get ahead and Succeed.

I guess that's why, in the past two years of college, I haven't really done much. I've worked in my classes and gotten A's, won a prize in the department's writing contest, but other than that... eh. After high school I kind of just felt so worn-out that I didn't take on anything extra in college, anything interesting to put on a resume. I've just gone to school, written some things, studied, and worked a lot at my little job that has no relevance to anything academic.

Now the time's coming to start looking for internships, and I have a pathetic, boring resume! And I don't really know what to do now. I don't even know what activities and things are out there, and how one goes about participating in them. I'm afraid that a high GPA won't be enough and I am very worried that I am just too far behind.