SINGLE LIFE
Stacy Sorock spends mornings in a law office and afternoons on the golf course.
Summer Time
And the living is easy?
College students strive to find
a balance between vocation and vacation
JENNIFER TAUB
Jewish News Intern
ollege students and
summer. At first glance
the words seem insep-
arable. No matter what
decade it was when you
relinquished that final blue-book to
return home for summer vacation,
you remember the feeling of freedom,
visions of sun and sand and
sleeping-in.
For some college students, sum-
mer is a time of fun and frivolity, heat
and hedonism. For others, it is a time
to start thinking about the real world,
what they want to do when they
"grow up." Several local students,
home for the summer, described their
feelings about summer and future
vocations.
Eric Horovitz, a senior economics
major at the University of Michigan,
addressed the issue of transition. He
admitted feeling slightly uneasy that
adulthood may ' involve the end of
summer vacations. "It feels like the
end of the world;' he said.
With the anticipation of a more
intense future in the work world,
some students treat summer like an
extremely long weekend. David
Weissman, an aerospace engineering
major at U of M, feels the summer is
a light at the end of the tunnel, the
longed for and deserved break after a
year of academic concentration. "Peo-
ple should not overburden
themselves. There's a lot of pressure
(ahead of me). I want to relax when
I can."
The anticipation of pressure
creates a competitive attitude which
causes some students to try to get a
head start in resume building now
Rabbi Eli Finkelman at the Hillel
Foundation at Wayne State Universi-
ty offered some words of concern.
"The general trend is less hanging
out and more working." He said this
trend arose from what he labeled "an
attitude toward economics," but add-
ed "there's more to life than making
money?'
One of the drawbacks of placing
heavy emphasis on jobs is a subse-
quent neglect of the variety of oppor-
tunities open to youth, the rabbi
pointed out. "I think some of the ex-
citement and experimentation gets
lost" in the rush to enter the adult
world.
Yet many students are able to ex-
periment and gain experience. Sarah
Lawrence junior, Julie Hermelin,
spent part of her summer at the
Naropa Institute, studying under beat
poet laureate, Allen Ginsberg at the
Jack Kerouac School for Disembodied
Poetics. The woods of New Hampshire
provided a perfect location for U of M
junior, Margie Goldman, to study
literature during June and July as a
part of an undergraduate program.
And Howard Rabinowitz, a Columbia
University junior, will wander alone
through Ireland, carrying a backpack
and a Walkman seeking employment
washing dishes at pubs along the way.
Students who remain at home
seem to be using summer as both a
time to gain work experience for the
future and a time for personal enrich-
ment, or more informally, to find a
balance between work and play.
Stacy Sorock, a communications
major at Michigan State University,
has found this balance. From 9 a.m.
to 1 p.m. she works at the law firm of
Eisenberg and Mazor, handling cases
of sexual harassment, discrimination
and divorce. Though she spends most
of her time answering phones and fil-
ing she has visited the Oakland
County Courthouse and has manag-
ed to learn a little about the legal
profession.
After 1 p.m., Stacy leaves the of-
fice behind and heads for Franklin
Hills to learn to play golf, her sum-
mer project. "It's frustrating. You
don't think it's so hard. I don't keep
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWini.