I know it’s grim, but hear me out.

For those who don’t know, a bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you die.

A bucket list can help you get the most out of your life. Some of you may already have one! For those who don’t, listen up.

You can get so caught up in things like climbing the corporate ladder and doomscrolling that you forget you still have a life to live.

There is so much stuff out there for you to experience, you don’t even know. Hell, I don’t even know.

This leads me to my next point: a bucket list is something that you can start working towards now. You don’t have to wait until you’re about to actually “kick the bucket.”

So many people don’t get that concept. They wait and wait and wait for the right time to do something. “I’ll lose weight and get the body of my dreams in my late-20s. I’ll start a non-profit once my schedule clears up. Blah, blah, blah.”

Motherfucker, start NOW.

I promise you that you have more spare time on your hands than you think.

You don’t have to rush either! The point of this isn’t to be like “GO! GO! HURRY UP. YOU ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!” I’m not trying to freak you out.

I would encourage you to start planning out the things you would like to do. Even if it’s something as simple as opening a note on your phone. Just start somewhere.

Then, actually try and do it.

For those wondering, here’s my personal bucket list:

BUCKET LIST:

• Be a successful writer.

• Sit courtside at any NBA game.

• See the Northern Lights.

• Play Magnus Carlsen, a World Chess Champion, in an over-the-board or online game of chess.

• Visit the Seven Wonders of the World.

• Break a Guinness World Record.

• Play in a domino tournament at Domino Park.

• Drink beer at Oktoberfest.

• Visit and explore as much of Japan as possible.

• Go on an episode of Jeopardy.

Feel free to share yours in the comments! I’d love to read them.

My final message: it may seem grim to write one now, but doing so can give you things to look forward to. It helps you think of the big picture that your life is.

Write a bucket list not because you’re going to die one day, but because you’re truly going to live.

Seriously? Why’d you click on this?

C’mon, you gotta have a little more faith in yourself! You aren’t stupid and I’ll prove it.

Before we go on: is this title considered clickbait? Kinda right? Honestly, I thought it would be more like anti-clickbait.

I want to talk about intelligence, or more specifically, what it actually means to be intelligent. This sounds simple, but there are many different approaches taken in the world of psychology.

What is Intelligence?

If we go by the book (specifically Merriam-Webster,) intelligence is defined as “the ability to learn or understand things or to deal with new or difficult situations.”

Snoozefest. Boring. Yawn.

It doesn’t really explain it, does it?

There are a couple of different approaches. Let’s talk about them.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ):

Everyone knows what an IQ score is. The average is 100. If you’re above 144, you are the second coming of Albert Einstein.

Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon pioneered the first practical intelligence test for school children. It tests memory, problem-solving, deductive reasoning, etc. It wasn’t until Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman revised it that we got the IQ, a single number that represented your score.

People put a lot of stock into this stuff. There’s whole societies dedicated to people with high IQ scores (mainly talking about Mensa, I’m sure there are others though.)

For funsies, here’s an example of a question on an IQ test. Answer is at the end of this article!

Now, if you suck at taking tests, then you’re just kinda screwed. Sorry.

IQ tests have had their validity questioned for a while now. It’s been used to make harmful generalizations about groups of people, claiming they have a “genetically inferior IQ.” Yikes.

Triarchic Theory:

Robert Sternberg was more progressive. He thought there were three kinds of intelligences, straying away from the IQ stuff and focusing more on real-world application.

He broke it up between analytical, creative and practical.

Analytical was about problem-solving, creative is about coming up with new and unique ideas, and practical is what we like to call “Street Smarts,” or knowing how to navigate all types of environments and applying your knowledge.

The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences:

This is the approach I agree with the most.

Howard Gardner is a Harvard psychologist who argued that IQ sucks ass, deeming it a one-size-fits-all for intelligence when that shouldn’t be the case. There are actually many different types of intelligence. He outlines them as such:

• Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: The ability to control body movements and handle objects skillfully.

• Interpersonal intelligence: The capacity to detect and respond appropriately to the moods, motivations, and desires of others.

• Intrapersonal intelligence: The capacity to be self-aware and in tune with inner feelings, values, beliefs, and thinking processes.

• Logical-mathematical intelligence: The ability to think conceptually and abstractly, as well as discern logical or numerical patterns.

• Musical intelligence: The ability to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch, and timbre.

• Naturalistic intelligence: The ability to recognize and categorize animals, plants, and other objects in nature.

• Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Well-developed verbal skills and sensitivity to the sounds, meanings, and rhythms of words.

• Visual-spatial intelligence: The capacity to think in images and visualize accurately and abstractly.

It’s like the quote. “Judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree and it’ll live the rest of its life thinking it’s stupid.”

I think this one makes the most sense and is more all-encompassing than some of the other approaches, which to me feel a bit elitist.

Fun fact: I was bored one day in high school and decided to see if Gardner was still alive. Whenever a textbook talks about someone, they are usually dead. I wanted to see if I can talk to someone who was not dead.

He was indeed alive and well. I asked if he could shoot a 10-second video for our AP Psych class, wishing us luck on our big exam. He responded.

What Do I Think Intelligence Is?

You care about what I think? Aww.

Well, if you ask me, I think an intelligent person is one who acknowledges and accepts that they cannot possibly know everything.

It’s not just humility, it’s the truth.

Learning is a lifelong journey. Someone who I find to be intelligent knows this. They have a voracious appetite for knowledge. They are curious about things, passionate about them. They apply themselves.

And this is the most important part.

If you ask them a question and they don’t know the answer, they won’t get embarrassed and make up some bullshit. They’ll try to find the answer with you.

That to me is the immediate sign of someone who actually wants to be intelligent instead of pretending to be for optics.

Conclusion:

Dear reader, I don’t think you’re stupid — even if you did click on this article.

I buy heavily into Howard Gardner’s approach — can you tell by the difference in length between their sections? I think everyone is intelligent in their own areas. That’s a beautiful thing.

If everyone I had to interact with was purely book smart, I think I’d kill myself.

Thanks for reading, and don’t let me catch you clicking on articles like this one again.

Oh by the way, the answer for that IQ test question was island. Aren’t you glad you scrolled to the end? Don’t you feel smarter already?

I recently finished reading “Destiny of The Republic” by Candice Millard.

It’s a book about James Garfield, the 20th president of the United States and how his death was 100% preventable if his doctors had just washed their hands at all (doctors in America didn’t believe in germs back then.)

Oh yeah, and spoilers for an event that happened 145 years ago. C’mon catch up.

Anyways, the book mentions Garfield’s various feats – a fervent abolitionist, wunderkind student, becoming the Republican nominee despite actively not wanting to, but his most important one for this article is his chess ability.

Garfield was a great chess player and considered by some sources to be the best president to play chess.

This got me thinking. Chess has always been a game associated with military strategy in popular culture.

So, I feel like that begs the question: have previous commanders-in-chief shown any ability at all on the 64 squares and if so, how good were they?

So… Where Are The Games?

In my preliminary research, I didn’t find much. Aside from this Chess.com article, listings for tacky presidential chess boards and those terrible AI president videos, there wasn’t much specific info about the playing strength of presidents anywhere.

There were clear connections to the game and the presidents, but at this point, my main challenge was finding actual recorded games that presidents have played.

This proved to be insanely difficult.

For some reason, despite being some of the most well-documented men on the planet and having clear ties to chess, it is impossible to find a full game actually played by a U.S. president.

Mind you, presidents themselves documented almost everything they did, mostly in a personal journal.

You mean to tell me people played against U.S. presidents and NEVER took notes on how the game went with the moves? At all? Which now makes me wanna know: why? Why is it so hard to find a full game?

Now we do have some historical evidence that shows that presidents were interested in chess.

For example, presidents have owned chess boards. Some of them are displayed in museums like John Quincy Adams’s, who was known for playing chess and he avidly collected game boards made of ivory and other sort of luxurious materials.

In fact, these purchases were actually used against him by political opponents, who accused him of using public funds to buy all of this stuff. And yes, he did indeed lose the very next election.

But none of that really means anything. If the amount of chess boards you owned indicated playing strength, I’d be a whole lot better than I actually am.

I needed some games to analyze and I had one hope of finding those games. And that hope was Bill Wall.

Enter Bill Wall:

Wall is a retired NASA computer security scientist and systems engineer. He has degrees in physics and electrical engineering. The guy is also a chess legend.

Remember that Chess.com article I mentioned? Wall wrote it.

In fact, Wall has written over 1,000 chess articles and authored countless books. If anyone can point me in a direction, it would be him.

I reached out to Wall to see if he could help me. Now, his website has been down for awhile, but I was able to find backups of it on the Wayback Machine. In those backups, I found his email.

I sent one out and I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t expect anything. Within 24 hours, Wall replied with this.

“Brian, There have been a few games by Presidents. Best source is chessgames.com. Here are some of my links.” Signed Bill Wall, former NASA scientist.

Despite Wall’s help, I was still having trouble finding any games. I asked for clarification and then he responded.

“Brian, I guess I was wrong about US Presidents and their recorded chess games. I only found one - Woodrow Wilson. I thought I had found more in my sources, but no luck. I’ve written several articles of Presidents and chess, but really no game score survives.”

Well… shit.

And just like that, the trail went cold. Now, I did get an actual full game played by Woodrow Wilson out of this interaction.

That’s a huge win and we’ll analyze it later. But for the rest, I needed to look elsewhere.

It’s Library Time:

So next up, I reached out to the Library of Congress and the Presidential Libraries. The Presidential Libraries then cc’d me to the libraries of various different presidents.

This was a super promising development.

In total, they cc’d me to 16 other libraries: Hoover, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, both Bush’s, Clinton, Obama, Trump, and Biden.

One of them has to have an answer to my question… right?

The first to respond was Obama’s library. They sent me the only picture available of Obama playing chess. As far as I’m concerned, this photo is hard to find online and is the only one that exists.

Now, I have no way of getting in touch with Obama but I can contact who he was playing against.

This is Ferial, Obama’s personal assistant at the time. She’s described in this article by the University of California, Irvine as “Obama’s occasional chess opponent.”

I reached out to Ferial to see if she has any recollection of these games or better yet: any records.

While I waited for a response, I started getting more emails. The Biden library had no records relating to chess, and they encouraged me to reach out to the Office of Joe and Jill Biden.

JFK Didn’t Have The Time:

Then JFK’s library reached out. They responded with an interview of Janet Auchincloss, who is Jacqueline Kennedy’s mother.

MRS. AUCHINCLOSS: He was very good at games and he loved to play bridge—although he never had much time to play. He did sit down and play with us occasionally. None of our children can play bridge. Jackie took lessons in Paris, and while she can remember everything in the world mechanically because she has that glorious memory, she didn’t have much card sense and she didn’t really like it. Jack really loved games.

BRADEN: When did Hugh D. teach him how to play chess?

MRS. AUCHINCLOSS: One night—I think it was in 1956, just after Jackie had gotten out of the Newport Hospital when she had lost the little baby girl—they were here in the Deck Room. Hugh D. used to sit there playing chess by himself. Jack walked over to him and said, “Mr. Auchincloss, will you teach me to play chess?” Hugh D. said, “Oh, I’m not very good.” Anyway, Jack stood there; I can remember him standing and staring at the board for half an hour and asking Hugh D. a few questions and then sitting down and playing for a while. It was a perfectly extraordinary thing that anybody could learn enough about chess in half an hour to sit down and play.

BRADEN: Then did the President ever beat Hugh D.?

MRS. AUCHINCLOSS: Well, that I couldn’t tell you.

BRADEN: No, I’ll bet.

MRS. AUCHINCLOSS: I don’t know. I don’t remember whether he ever did again, but I remember that Hugh D. was terribly impressed that in a few minutes he had gotten some sort of a grasp of it, because he was a very keen games player. Don’t you think, Hugh D.?

MR. AUCHINCLOSS: Yes. He loved to play backgammon, too.

In case you didn’t read all that, basically Jacqueline Kennedy’s stepfather, Hugh D. Auchincloss Jr., taught Kennedy how to play chess — and apparently he picked it up fast.

They also sent this document. Apparently someone had sent in a letter and asked if Kennedy played chess.

Pierre Salinger, his press secretary, replied “Dear Mr. Hutchinson, Thank you for your letter of August 29th and the enclosed article by Ralph Gleason. I am afraid that the President does not play chess. Quite frankly, he doesn’t have enough time.”

Another person asked Kennedy if he played billiards or pool. He was working on an article about famous people who played. I’m glad to know there were others like me who were curious about these sorts of things.

A Whole Lot Of Nothing:

Most of the emails I received were pretty brief.

The libraries of Bush, Eisenhower, Truman all essentially said “we got nothing.” The only bit of interesting information I got was from Truman’s library, which said that he liked to play the card game “Canasta.” So that’s something!

Nixon’s library couldn’t find anything except a photo of Henry Kissinger, his infamous National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, asleep with a chess board on his lap.

Trump’s library said they had no records, but told me I could send my question online or through mail to The White House. (I don’t think they’ll answer me anytime soon.)

Clinton Sunk My Battleship:

There was one library I was eager to hear from and that was Clinton’s. Bill Clinton played for the Georgetown Chess Team in 1968.

There has to be something there.

I woke up early, saw they replied, got real excited and…

Nothing. They had nothing on him playing chess.

They said his favorite card game was hearts, he liked crossword puzzles and played a game of Battleship once for a skit at The White House Correspondents dinner.

The only recommendation they had was to reach out to someone named Shawna, who deals with Clinton’s personal items before he was president and to consider reaching out to the Georgetown Chess Team myself.

So I did both. No reply so far.

Georgetown Chess Team, if you’re somehow seeing this, help me out please.

Jimmy Carter, Chess Pro?

My next flash of hope came in the form of Jimmy Carter.

Carter, after his presidency, wanted to be a chess expert.

He hand carved a board and according to sources, bought a chess computer program and books to learn the game before giving up and admitting he “didn’t have the natural talent for it.” Trust me man, I know.

And then the library emailed me: they had nothing.

Ok, well not nothing. They sent me a few documents related to chess and a photo of two Carter staffers playing chess, but the president, who himself wanted to be an expert at the game, has ZERO played matches on file. Not one.

Now, let’s go back to those documents for just a second. Upon further inspection, I found something kinda cool.

Who’s Korchnoi and Why Did The U.S.S.R Want Him Dead?

There’s a letter addressed to Carter by someone named Lordo P. Kvinn.

He says that his company, Universal Innovations, is promoting the 1978 World Chess Championship between Anatoly Karpov, one of the greatest players in history, and Viktor Korchnoi, considered by many to be one of the strongest players to never win a title.

He then says something really interesting. He says that Korchnoi authorized his company to reach out to the White House and see if they’d consider letting him represent the U.S.

For added context, Korchnoi defected from the U.S.S.R two years prior to this letter.

You couldn’t just leave the Soviet Union, it was prohibited under law. So if you wanted to leave, you had to escape.

In Korchnoi’s case, he was given permission to go to a tournament in Amsterdam. He played an opponent and after the game asked him, “hey, how do you write ‘Political asylum’ in English?”

His opponent showed him, he went to the police station and asked to receive asylum, thus making him the first ever Soviet grandmaster to defect.

So Korchnoi’s request to represent the U.S. seemingly stumped Carter’s administration at first. They didn’t really want to get involved — presumably not wanting to unnecessarily piss off the U.S.S.R.

So basically, they said “not our problem. Take it up with the chess federations.”

By the way, fun little sidebar, Korchnoi was so paranoid that the U.S.S.R was going to sabotage him at the championship match, he wore mirrored glasses because he thought the Soviets were going to use “hypnotic attacks” against him and then kill him after the match was over.

That’s real by the way, I’m not making that up.

Before you ask, Korchnoi did end up losing the match to Karpov.

My Final Hope Was The Library of Congress:

I was feeling hopeless. My journey had taken many interesting twists and turns, but still no full game. I wanted to quit. Then, something happened.

The Library of Congress reached out.

If you don’t know, they are one of the largest libraries in the world. They have over 30 million books and like 178 million materials overall. I thought for sure that this would be it, that something, anything would pop up.

They had NOTHING. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

All they could do was link me back to Bill Wall’s articles on the subject. That’s it. For them to not have anything meant what I was looking for must be pretty rare, so rare that it just might not exist.

Was Woodrow Wilson Any Good?

So we still haven’t found any games except for one, and that’s Wilson’s.

At the very least, we can analyze this game to peer into the tactical mind of a U.S. president – except he wasn’t president when he played this game but just give me this one.

Now I don’t mean to brag, but I consider myself to be a pretty decent chess player. Here’s some corroborating evidence to prove as such.

Alright, let’s look at this game briefly (For my non-chess nerds, feel free to skip this! The conclusion is right below and I have an important message for everyone reading.)

Also shoutout Chess.com user BossBlunder! They found this game and posted the full moves on the site, making my job a whole lot easier.

Wilson played with the white pieces against someone named Salomon Langleben, who at the time was the Buffalo, New York champion. He opened with NF3.

A few moves in and Wilson has a good advantage. Could he… be the chess-playing president I’ve been looking for?

Then he played pawn e4.

This is a mistake that cost him and puts the game back to equal. Langleben counters in the center with pawn d5 and after Wilson pushes, he hops his knight into the now-vulnerable d4 square.

A few moves later, Wilson makes another mistake. Black castles, lining up his rook to white’s queen for a discovered attack.

Wilson just ignores the threat entirely, blundering a central pawn. Not great.

Then we get to the decisive sequence of the game.

Salomon plays two brilliant moves.

First, he plays bishop back to b6! He keeps the pressure on white’s king, cutting off the g1 escape square. His dark-squared bishop here is dominant and he shouldn’t trade it off for white’s misplaced knight.

Then all he does is sidestep his queen from the vision of white’s bishop, but it’s brilliant because of what it threatens. Wilson can’t take the knight because then it’s queen e1 MATE! He has to address this.

Wilson defended well, but black’s pieces are too active and his king is wide open. Once black got his rook active, it was all over.

The attack is devastating for Wilson and he has to sacrifice material to defend himself from checkmate.

A few moves after allowing black to attack, white would blunder his g pawn to a pin.

Wilson played a few more moves before resigning.

According to Chess.com, Wilson played at around an 1850 level in this game. That’s pretty strong!

I think it’s impressive he had a winning position out of the opening. His opponent, by the way, played at an impressive 2100 level.

Conclusion:

So, to answer the question: were U.S. presidents, the commanders-in-chief of the military, any good at chess? Drum roll…

It looks like for now, we’ll never know for sure.

I really wish I could give you a more exciting answer, this is not how I envisioned this going down at all. But, the answer is that there isn’t one. And sometimes, we have to be ok with that.

I think this journey shows us that there are still plenty of things left to be discovered. We are trusting pure anecdotal evidence that U.S. presidents played chess but we don’t have any actual games to go off of.

You shouldn’t discourage yourself from pursuing a topic of interest because you assume that the answer is already out there.

By itself, the fact that there isn’t an answer to my question is already super interesting to me and I hope that on some level, this sparked a curiosity in you to research a question that you’ve always had, no matter how niche you may think it is.

Thanks for reading this one. I poured months of work into it. It means something to me that you made it here. Even if you just skimmed over what I wrote, I appreciate you.

It can be New Years, Thanksgiving, an uncle’s birthday, it doesn’t matter.

Chances are, a group of older men and women will be slamming down tiles and yelling at each other. You won’t think much of it until for whatever reason, one of them calls you over to sit.

You’ve been invited to the domino table.

They’re smoking up a storm. Through the fog, you see the table: it’s a JPEG of cigars smack dab in the middle.

Shit is about to get real.

You pick up your tiles, place them across from you and…

You don’t know how to play, do you?

It’s alright, don’t panic! I’m here to help.

I’ll show you how to play so you don’t get laughed at. This article will be your secret weapon.

How do I even play?

Rules are pretty simple.

You will be playing with a partner who’ll sit in front of you. The aim of the game is to get rid of all your tiles before your opponents do. You each have 10 tiles. Seems easy enough.

You play corresponding tiles on two ends of the table. Someone will start — most likely with a double — and you have to place down a matching number. For example, they’ll throw out a 9-9 and on your turn you have to place down a 9-something.

You guys go around placing tiles. If you don’t have a tile that can fit on either end, you knock on the table. You just got passed, dork. You don’t want to get passed.

Not all games end with someone getting rid of all their tiles. Sometimes, everyone will pass and the game is officially locked.

When the game is locked, everyone turns their tiles over. The lowest number of total dots represented on the tiles wins. For example, if I have a single tile with a 9-9 and my opponent has two tiles but they’re a 1-1 and a 0-0, I lose.

You count up both of the loser’s tiles and add them to your score. First to 200 points wins (I’ve seen people count up to 100, pick what you want.)

And that’s it.

With that information alone, you can just aimlessly place tiles and still probably win a game or more. But there is so much strategy that can help make you look like a predictive genius.

Possible, But Improbable:

Counting the table is a big part of dominoes.

Let’s talk numbers real quick:

• There are 55 tiles total; every single combination from 0-0 to 9-9.

• There is only one of each domino. There are no repeats.

• 15 dominoes will always be left out from the initial draw. This also affects probability.

Take a look at this example. The person on your right miraculously has one tile left. You absolutely need to pass them. Based on probability, what should you play?

If you said A, you’ve got a bright future for this.

Yes, based on probability, you should play the 8-2 on the top. If you counted the table, you noticed that there’s already six eights placed. The one in your hand is the seventh.

Considering some dominoes are left out of the initial draw, the chances of your opponent having an eight are very small, about less than 30%.

Also, you COULD throw the eight at the bottom instead, making it so that both ends are two and you have a 3-2 and 1-2 left. However, the two is a little easy and your opponent is only one tile away from winning, so you should focus on passing them.

B is also not a bad option at all — there’s a good amount of threes on the table already. Still, A is almost a guaranteed skip of your opponent.

The only option I wouldn’t pick is C. There’s only a single one tile on the table, so there’s a pretty good chance someone has it. It’s too fresh.

Keep in mind, this is just an example to showcase the concept and there are exceptions to this.

For example, in the previous scenario, if your opponent keeps repeating eight, then DON’T THROW AN EIGHT. You’re playing right into their hand.

Also, let’s say you throw the eight and now with two eights on both sides, everyone including you pass. The game is locked and your remaining two tiles are the 1-2 and 3-2. Those are pretty good odds of winning since you’re so low!

You also want to try and stop your opponent from playing their number by keeping track of which ones are already on the table.

For example, if your opponent keeps repeating fives, keep track of what fives they’ve already played. If they threw out the 5-6 earlier in the game, you can put down a six knowing they won’t hit you with another five (because there’s only one of each type of domino remember?) That way you don’t give them the chance to put it down and dominate that end of the chain!

In this next section, I keep referring to certain numbers as strong. Simply put, a strong number is one in which you have the most tiles of.

Test Your Memory:

The most important part of this game is memory. More specifically, memorizing both what your partner and enemy are strong and weak in.

In dominoes, you want to play to your strengths. You want to keep repeating your preferred number so you can pass people and you want to keep that number active for as long as possible.

Remember how I said someone will start, usually with a double? Chances are, if they’re playing logically, that double is of their strongest number. If I throw out a 8-8, I probably have a lot of eight tiles.

Your opponents will try to get rid of the number you are strong in whenever they have the chance, either by killing it directly or forcing you or your partner to get rid of it involuntarily by playing something neither of you have at the other end — usually their strongest number.

Oh that’s another rule. In dominoes, you have to play if you have something available. It’s illegal to skip if you can play a tile on either end.

So an opponent will play their strong number on the other end to try and get you to bounce by killing your own number.

Take note of what number your partner keeps throwing out. If you’re playing with old Cuban folk, you won’t have to even remember what number is their strength as they will emphatically slam the tile on the table and say it out loud every single time without fail — lucky you!

More importantly, remember what number your partner passed on. If the number they passed on is active, kill it ASAP and make a mental note not to put it out there yourself.

For example, if my partner passes on a two, I’m not going to play a two on the other end to make it twos on both sides. They’ll strangle me if I do that. Instead, I’ll kill the two on one end to open up possibilities for them. Try not to play over your partner.

Knowing when to be unselfish vs. taking control of a game yourself is important. If six out of your 10 dominoes are the same number and it’s already scarce on the table, go for the win. If you don’t really have a strong set, help your partner win.

Pray To Lady Luck:

There is one thing you have to keep in mind: there will always be an element of luck to this game.

You can play a game perfectly with the tiles you are dealt and still lose. That’s normal.

But knowing how to play does increase your chances of winning. Playing blindly can only get people so far.

Just remember the golden rule: if you win, it’s because you are a tactical genius who has an unparalleled memory and vision of the table. If you lose, it’s all luck or your opponents are cheating. Keep this in mind as there is a lot of trash talk in this game.

TL;DR:

• You have 10 tiles. First to get rid of them all wins.

• If you can’t connect a tile on either end, you knock and pass.

• If the game locks, meaning no one can place down another tile, you all flip over your remaining tiles and count the dots. Lowest amount wins, so try to be light.

• Play to your strengths. Keep repeating your strongest number — the one you have the most tiles of.

  • Aren’t that strong in anything really? Play for your partner to win then. Repeat whatever number they’re putting out.

• Count the table. There is only one of each domino. Use this knowledge to pass opponents by playing a low-probability number (exception being is if it’s the opponent’s strength, then don’t play it.)

• Memorize your…

  • opponent’s strengths. If they’re repeating a number, keep track of it and prevent them from playing it.

  • opponent’s weaknesses. If they pass on a specific number, play it.

  • partner’s strengths. If they’re repeating a number, leave it on the table as long as possible.

  • partner’s weaknesses. If they pass on a specific number, kill it — or play on top of it.

• Pray for luck. You can’t win every single game all the time.

Conclusion:

You did it!

There is definitely some stuff that I haven’t covered in this article. I tried to be as in-depth as possible but a lot of the things you learn by just playing the game more. You’ll realize that there are superseding concepts and many, many exceptions to what I wrote.

I’ll post a couple of full games played by me with my family and explain each of the concepts in action. That’ll be hyperlinked here when I do so.

If you win a game because of this, send me a message or leave a comment! It would make this all worth it.

Every week, I play in a tournament with my dad, grandpa and a rotating cast of family friends. We keep score in a blue notebook and play for hours until the sun sets (I’m going to write an entirely separate article about dominoes, so stay tuned.)

For some reason that day, we started talking and the conversation shifted to how I needed a camera for my work. My grandpa then mentions that he has one he can lend me. I didn’t have high expectations. How good can it be? My grandpa, as wonderful a human as he is, isn’t exactly the kind of guy I’d go to for anything tech.

I asked him to bring it out anyways.

He leaves for about 10 minutes and then brings out a camera bag. I open it.

It was a camcorder — a Canon DC220 DVD camcorder to be specific.

He tells me it’s mine to keep if I can turn it on. It hasn’t been used for more than a decade.

After a few minutes of messing around with it, I got it to work. I checked the discs and SD card and…

Oh. My. God.

My grandpa had documented every Christmas, every birthday, every major holiday, a bunch of his adventures in Cuba. He had also taken over 2,000 photos spanning from 2009 to 2012.

As a person who loves collecting and preserving memories (I’m a huge scrapbooking nerd), this was the Holy Grail.

I couldn’t believe it. I immediately went home and got to work getting everything off the discs and SD card into my computer.

The Past:

I’m going to show a few moments I was able to retrieve. This is mostly a gallery section with some commentary in the captions. Feel free to look! Or don’t. I couldn’t care less. Skip to the next subheading if you want.

1. My baseball days were short-lived. I was a chubby kid who didn’t want to run the bases.

2. My little sister’s baseball days were even shorter.

3. A zoomed-in photo of my dad when he was much younger. Love you dad. The goatee will always be part of your look for me.

4. I don’t even like Iron Man all that much. I prefer Batman. Everything I had growing up was Batman-themed. I didn’t remember this costume at all.

5. I mean I’m Cuban I gotta show the roasted pig c’mon now.

6. The man, the myth, the legend. That’s my grandpa who gave me the camera. Formerly a math professor in Cuba. Love you.

7. One of the ones taken in Cuba. I don’t know why I like this image so much, it’s just cool to me.

Keep in mind, these are only a few photos. There are a bunch of them and, in my opinion, the coolest stuff on the camera was all the video. Sharing the videos might be too personal even for me, but I might make an article and edited cut talking about them one day.

The Present:

As of last year, I’ve been filming with the camera at a bunch of different events: Holiday parties, hangout sessions, trips, that one time my friends and I failed a 30-inch pizza eating challenge and I almost threw up. You name it, and I’ve probably filmed it on the camcorder.

There’s two reasons for this. First is I just like the aesthetic and feel of the footage. Something about how it looks is so nostalgic to me. I like the fuzziness of it. The fact that it isn’t so sharp and clear gives it almost a dreamlike quality. Also, the zoom on it is actually really impressive. I was shocked by how far out this thing can go.

Second is I want to keep making memories with the same camcorder my grandpa used to document all of mine. I want to continue his legacy, his work.

What’s the point?

If you’ve made it this far, I’m going to highly encourage you to see if your family was the kind to document your childhood.

Ask your parents if they had a camcorder or any sort of camera.

If they have one, sweet! If not, that’s also ok! It doesn’t just have to be a camcorder. It can be any old photos or DVDs, maybe a family heirloom. Just any keepsakes at all.

Whatever you can get your hands on, go get it. You never know what you might find!

Going down memory lane in my 20s has done wonders for me and I know it can do wonders for you too, whatever age you are. It gives you a new appreciation for the life you’ve lived. I really can’t do the feeling justice in this article. Just do it.

In middle school, I was a Greek mythology nerd.

I read just about everything I could get my hands on and enjoyed all of it.

Stories about Apollo’s Sun chariot, Loki’s various shenanigans, Cronus eating all of his children except Zeus (he swallowed a rock instead, not even bothering to check if it was actually his newborn son — maybe chew next time.)

They were all fun tales that explain natural phenomena with some important life lessons sprinkled in.

Then I came across the story of Icarus and Daedalus.

Icarus:

The story of Icarus and Daedalus is one of the most popular Greek myths out there. Here’s a quick synopsis.

Daedalus was a master craftsman who famously helped King Minos of Crete build his palace and the inescapable labyrinth that holds the Minotaur. Icarus was his adventurous, impatient son.

Without going too much into a separate story, Daedalus helps someone escape the labyrinth and slay the Minotaur.

King Minos was furious about this, so he imprisoned both Daedalus and Icarus in a big ass tower above the palace.

Daedalus plans an escape: he makes two sets of wings by glueing together a bunch of feathers with some wax. They were going to fly out of there.

He warns Icarus about flying too high. He also warns him to not go too low either.

Together, the two soar out of Crete.

Unfortunately, Icarus forgets his father’s warning and starts going higher and higher into the sky.

Before he could realize it, it was already too late.

Icarus had flown too close to the sun.

The wax holding the wings together begins to melt and he falls into the ocean and drowns.

What Does It All Mean?

This story can be interpreted in many ways, but I’ve always seen it as an allegory for burnout. It resonates with me because it’s something I’ve been battling since I was a teenager.

In high school, I was the kid who took a million AP classes — which in many ways are more rigorous than any college class you’ll ever take. I joined every club or honor society I could to pad out my application.

I got to college and guess what? I didn’t go a single semester without working, whether it be at an internship or a leadership position — like being the editor-in-chief of my university’s newspaper (I’ll write about my days as editor in a different article.)

Countless hours were spent stressing over having the perfect resume, tailored cover letters for each role I applied to and getting over 500+ connections on LinkedIn so people knew I wasn’t some schmuck.

I know I’m making this sound like it’s so draining and that I hated every minute of it. I promise I did enjoy doing a lot of the things I’ve mentioned. But you can get tired even by things you love and there was something a lot more sinister behind it that made things much worse.

All of it resulted in me experiencing some serious burnout at 23.

Here’s the thing: at least Icarus got close to the sun before his wings burned out. I feel like mine are torched and I haven’t even started to fly yet.

Later in my adult life, I sat down with a psychiatrist looking for an answer to why I was feeling so burnt out all the time. We had a long conversation about my routines, habits, thoughts, feelings, etc.

Then I got the diagnosis.

What is OCD?

OCD, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, is a mental health disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors known as compulsions. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, roughly 1.2% of U.S. adults had OCD in the past year.

That’s around 4 million people.

You might be reading this and not even know you have it. I sure didn’t figure it out until recently.

I didn’t exhibit what I thought were typical symptoms. I wasn’t a neat freak (my room is actually a bit of a mess.) I didn’t wash my hands excessively. I didn’t think my thoughts were intrusive ones (I was wrong.)

These are the symptoms I feel everyone associates with OCD. There are indeed many other ones that people fail to recognize.

The Signs Were Always There:

It’s so funny because I look back at things I did when I was younger and realize that the signs were there all along.

Here’s a fun example: video games. I love playing them. I owned a Nintendo 3Ds and “Animal Crossing: New Leaf.”

It’s a game where you’re the mayor of a town of cute little animal creatures, each with their own personalities, likes, dislikes, etc. You can only do so much in a day — you have to wait for real time to pass before you can continue to make progress.

Inevitably, you will miss a day. Possibly a few in a row if you get careless.

In my mind, missing too many days would tarnish the entire playthrough. Instead of going back to what I had built, I would just delete the save file and start over again.

The game even tries to stop you from doing this, asking multiple times if you’re sure about this.

One slip-up always put it beyond the point of no return for me. This is not normal. Striving for perfection in instances like this make the overall experience of playing games worse, yet I can’t help myself.

Intrusive Thoughts and Compulsions:

OCD has taken a lot of time away from me that could’ve been spent doing other things.

A simple “Thank You” email after an interview — which someone can bang out in a few minutes — can take me hours. Not because I don’t know how to write it, but because I re-read everything over and over and over and over and over again.

Do you know what’s the worst part about this whole process?

If I do end up finding some sort of typo or mistake, my brain justifies the whole thing and I start over again.

“See? If you didn’t re-read this email for the 1,000th time, you would’ve missed the fact that you used the wrong type of “your.” Now, let’s start from the top…”

It’s not just with emails either. I re-read texts, signs, even lines of a book that I had just gone over a second ago.

Formatting documents is another big time sink for me.

I’ll get so upset if the fonts are even 1 PT different from each other or if things are spaced unevenly — bonus points if I can’t figure out why the spacing is off.

Remember how I mentioned I would spend countless hours stressing about the perfect resume? That’s not an exaggeration.

I also repeat things to myself. A lot.

I’ll recite just about anything in my head from memory and get genuinely frustrated when I fail and start over again. Old WiFi passwords, useless tidbits of information, passages from a book I’m reading.

Here’s a real example of this that I do.

A few months back, I read the book “Failure Is Not An Option” by Gene Kranz. It’s a book about NASA’s history from Mercury to Gemini to Apollo. (Fantastic read by the way for any of my space nerds reading this.)

I would (and still do sometimes) recite each and every single mission from that book in order to the best of my ability. That would include the name of the astronauts and name of the mission and why it mattered.

If you walked in on me at 3:44 AM on a random day, there’s a good chance you’d find me repeating this in my room: “Mercury Atlas-1 exploded… Mercury Redstone-1 was the infamous four-inch flight… Ed White did the first American EVA on Gemini Titan 4…”

I’m not making that up. That’s real.

Maybe it’s a self-soothing technique. Maybe I’m scared of forgetting things. It’s probably both.

I’ve always had an irrational fear of not having the answers to questions when I feel like I should know them.

I cling on to information because you never know when one day, some wannabe game show host / social media influencer stops you on the street and asks you general trivia questions to make you look like a big dumb-dumb in front of his online audience.

“You don’t want people to know you’re stupid, do you? What good are you if you don’t know things?”

That’s an extremely uncommon example obviously.

But in regular conversations, if something comes up and I don’t know the answer, I get unreasonably embarrassed for not knowing.

I’m so petrified of sounding dumb.

Conclusion:

If any of what I wrote sounds like you, please go see a therapist. Professional help can get you so far.

Of course, I say this and refuse to attend frequent sessions myself. I need to be better with that.

OCD can hurt you in a myriad of ways. It can hit you with unwanted thoughts that make you feel like a bad person, causing you to isolate yourself from others. It can instill in you a doubt unlike anything else and force you to engage in these repetitive behaviors that waste time.

OCD convinces you that you must be perfect and thrives on the shame you feel when you aren’t.

But you can fight back. You can take control of your life with the proper guidance and resources.

There remains hope for us both. We don’t have to lose our wings before we ever get close enough to the sun.

Resources:

• International OCD Foundation

• OCD-Support

• Psychology Today — Find A Therapist Near You

  • Make sure to find someone who specializes in OCD and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) therapy!

Have you been keeping up with the news lately?

I don’t blame you if you haven’t. It’s been a lot to keep up with.

In the flurry of radical policy changes and sensationalist remarks coming from all the people at the top, one recent reform is emblematic of the direction we’re heading in as a nation and it isn’t receiving enough mainstream coverage.

The White House Internship Program, a public service leadership program meant to foster the next generation of future leaders, is no longer paid, according to the official website.

It’s a huge step backward from the progress made by the Biden-Harris Administration and an insult to the efforts made by those who fought to make it paid, like Carlos Mark Vera, Executive Director of Pay Your Interns.

Historically, the program has always been unpaid, so this isn’t an issue unique to the Trump Administration. However, they are the ones who decided to re-erect this barrier of entry, which is insurmountable to many.

The Problem:

Let’s be completely honest about what this change is intended to do: this is an attempt to keep young, low-income Americans out of politics.

It’s meant to ensure that people who aren’t in a high-enough tax bracket can’t ever contribute at the highest levels of government, effectively shutting out huge swaths of capable, hardworking citizens whose only demerit is not being rich enough.

Most non-working, full-time college students cannot afford to live in Washington D.C. without pay. It is one of the most expensive cities in the United States with the cost of living reported as 39% higher than the national average.

Now the only people who can participate in the program are those who can afford to do so. If you don’t have the funds to pay for rent, food, transportation and any other miscellaneous costs for the next three months – the duration of the summer internship – you’re out of luck.

The decision to make the program unpaid fits the current administration’s goals: aggressive, blind cost-cutting at the expense of people’s livelihoods and a draining of a government that the White House claims “wastes billions of dollars each year on duplicative programs and frivolous expenditures.”

Tell me: what exactly is wasteful about paying interns? How does not paying Americans for their work align with their interests?

Some people may scoff at this and question the utility of interns, wondering if they’re worth paying. This is a long-standing perception that interns are only good for doing meaningless tasks that their superiors don’t have time for. Fetch coffee, fill out a spreadsheet, transcribe a meeting.

This viewpoint is outdated. I’ve seen interns at all levels of the government doing critical work that serves the country. Interns who contribute to speeches, press releases, research reports, community events.

Interns are important, and this stigma of them being useless needs to disappear for good.

My Personal Experience:

I can say with absolute certainty that if the program had been unpaid when I applied, I would’ve never been able to take part in an experience that changed the course of my life.

I’m a son of two Cuban immigrants. We’re not wealthy, never have been. We live paycheck to paycheck and do what we must to survive.

So, when I received the acceptance letter for the program, I was shocked. I never thought the White House – a place filled with such opulence and history – to be somewhere that I belonged. Thanks to the stipend provided, I could afford to live in the nation’s capital.

Through my work in the Photo Office and as a volunteer, I gave back to the American people. Maintaining the integrity of the photo archives of our nation’s history and getting our policy work in front of the public were tasks I took on with great pride.

My favorite volunteer opportunity was assisting with the annual Hallo-READ event – a Halloween event that welcomed hundreds of families onto the South Lawn to hand out books and encourage reading to children.

Seeing all the kids run around in their costumes, admiring the decorations was a joy. There was a moment when First Lady Jill Biden sat down and read a story to a group of parents and their kids. It was awesome!

The night ended with a cold rain and all the interns scrambled to escort everyone safely off the premises. I was shivering by the end of it, but I felt immensely gratified.

At the end of my internship, I was fortunate enough to attend the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony, a beloved tradition at the White House. It brought together so many talented artists and families for a night of community and holiday cheer.

These are moments that have opened up my eyes to what public service can do. I’ll never forget any of this as long as I live.

But again, if the program was unpaid, many of us would’ve never gotten to see any of this. We wouldn’t have the same appreciation for service that we do today.

My involvement with the program inspired those around me to read up on current events. Friends and family who had zero desire to keep up with the politics of this nation were now actively asking me questions.

The program gave me hope for a better future; a future that I can actively contribute to. It showed me that even someone with a background like mine can do more than just gaze at the pillars of the White House from behind the fence on Pennsylvania Avenue.

It made me feel like I can make a difference. It made plenty of others feel the same way too.

Conclusion:

Government internships are invaluable for young Americans.

It gives them a glimpse into how the system works so they can be ready for it when it’s their turn to steer the ship. It’s easy to dismiss how important these chances for young people are, especially with the cost-cutting craze that this nation seems to be in now.

If the White House cares about the future of our youth, they’ll reverse this decision and keep the doors open for millions of talented individuals who aspire to lead this country and to serve their fellow Americans.

I think now more than ever, we need the next generation of people to get interested in politics.

Cutting fat is one thing – investing in the future of a nation is another. Paying interns allows young Americans from all walks of life to take ownership and responsibility for the future of their country.

Pay your interns: You’ll see dividends that last longer than any cost-cutting fad.

*I’d like to give a special thanks to my friends who encouraged me to speak up about this topic. It’s because of you that I have the confidence and courage to do this. Thank you to my good friend and former editor Elise for helping me with this one — the best reporter in the world.

My name is Brian! I have a Bachelor’s in PR and I’ve been fortunate enough to land internships with NASA, NBC Sports and The White House during my 4-year college career.

People will tell you that I’ve been insanely lucky. That may be true. They may also tell you that applying to these institutions and others is a total crapshoot. I disagree.

There are so many things that you can do to increase your chances of hearing back that no one will tell you about when you start. A lot of advice out there can be conflicting and sometimes the answers to your burning questions aren’t clear.

“Do I follow the recruiter on LinkedIn and reach out about my application? Do I really have to pay for LinkedIn Premium? Am I slowly going insane?”

I’d like to share a few of the tips that I think most contributed to my success. I’ll try to consolidate what I’ve learned over the years into this helpful little guide. If this article helps you land anything at all, please feel free to message me. I’d love to hear about it!

Now, without further adieu…

Quick Disclaimer: I know how stressful this whole process can be. Just remember that not landing an internship isn’t a reflection of you or your skills. If this is too much for you, take a break! You can always come back to this. You have more time than you know. ❤️

The Resume:

Ah. The resume.

Sum up your life’s worth on one page. Anything over and we’ll throw it into a virtual paper shredder.

Your resume is the single most important document pertaining to your career and a good one will help you land internships.

However, it isn’t just about what you write — the formatting matters too.

Before I get into why this is, let’s get one big question out of the way.

This is a really common concern that people have and I totally get it!

It seems like nowadays, all entry-level positions require 2-3 years of relevant experience. But… how do I get the experience?

I think people fail to realize how important working for a student organization or volunteering can be. This is stuff you can absolutely put on a resume when you’re starting out.

My first ever job was as a sports reporter for the University of Florida’s newspaper, The Independent Alligator (shoutout my editors Ryan Haley and Zachary Huber.)

I learned a lot at this job about writing, interviewing and journalistic integrity. I also wrote a lot of pieces that I’m super proud of and was able to show off in my portfolio (a topic which will be talked about in Part 2.)

If you aren’t working for your student paper, you are missing out. This is a chance to gain clips for your portfolio and demonstrate you know how to write! Go apply!

Passionate about a cause? Offer to volunteer! There is no such thing as too many smart, hardworking volunteers.

Tangent over, now back to why formatting matters.

Everyone wants to work at a major name-brand company. So, you can imagine that hundreds of applications flood in the moment there’s an opening.

In an ideal world, each resume sent in is assigned to its own dedicated HR person, who meticulously reviews it and gives it all the love and attention it deserves.

That’s just not reality.

Chances are, your resume is being read by a software known as an Applicant Tracking System, or an ATS. This software screens out a bunch of applicants based on keywords in an effort to determine if you’re a match for the job.

The software can be very… funky. Have you ever uploaded a resume so you can auto-fill your application only to have fix all of it manually because it’s a jumbled mess?

Yeah. Softwares like these for some reason still can’t properly read a resume.

If we want to improve your chances of hearing back, we NEED to make sure your resume can pass the first screening.

So what do we do?

For starters, keep the resume to just a single column. ATS sucks at reading two-column resumes.

Let’s not use any photos or graphics, because guess what? ATS can’t read that either!

Fonts? Keep it simple stupid. Arial, Georgia, Calibri, Times New Roman. If you use Papyrus or Curlz, I will personally end you. Keep the size between 10-12.

Now, as for the actual writing of the bullets, there’s a few things to keep in mind.

• Use the APR format (Action + Project/Problem + Result.)

  • Action: “Organized and executed…”

  • Project/Problem: “…a year-long communications campaign for Metabolic Manipulation and Human Hibernation project…”

  • Result: “…consisting of blog posts, podcast appearances and short-form video content.”

  • Final: “Organized and executed a year-long communications campaign for Metabolic Manipulation and Human Hibernation project, consisting of blog posts, podcast appearances and short-form video content.”

• Include some keywords from the job description. Don’t shove a bunch of them in there when they don’t belong or try to hide them — recruiters and the system will pick up on this. Put them in when appropriate so you can tailor your resume to the job you want.

  • Ideally, your work experience is relevant to the role you’re applying to so this shouldn’t be too much of a hassle.

• I’m not a huge fan of including soft skills (Communication, leadership, problem-solving, etc.) on a resume. I’ve always preferred hard skills that show a technical proficiency in something. In our cases, it’s almost always a video editing or analytics software.

  • Also don’t include Microsoft Office — most people expect you to know how to use Word.

Here’s my resume. If you like this template, feel free to steal it. It’s nothing fancy.

Brian Olmo Resume

98.4KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

TL;DR:

• Go apply to your student newspaper or volunteer at an organization. You won’t regret it!

• Keep your resume to one-column!

• Don’t include photos, graphics, icons, etc.

• Use a normal font and size.

  • Arial, Georgia, Calibri, Times New Roman.

  • 10-12 PT.

• Use the APR format (Action + Project/Problem + Result).

• Include some keywords from the job description.

• Use relevant numbers in your bullet points.

• Include hard skills in your resume. Know how to use a software? Throw that sucker in there — bonus points if you have certifications to go along with it.

The Cover Letter:

I am TERRIBLE at writing a good cover letter.

It’s just the truth. I’ve accepted this fatal flaw of mine.

I feel bad for outsourcing this part of the article to someone else, but the best guide for writing a cover letter I’ve ever seen has to be the one by Holly J. Morris of NPR.

Here’s the link for it, please read this. It’s funny, informative, and goes step-by-step.

Now that being said: how important is a cover letter actually?

I actually spoke to one of my managers at NASA about this exact topic. From their perspective, cover letters have fallen out of style. Think back to what I wrote in the previous section.

In an ideal world, each resume sent in is assigned to its own dedicated HR person, who meticulously reviews it and gives it all the love and attention it deserves.

That’s just not reality.

Same thing goes for cover letters. It’s not that recruiters don’t care about you putting in the extra effort to write one — they just sometimes don’t have time to look over it. This isn’t the case for every company or organization, but it’s what I’ve heard.

I’ve never had to write a cover letter for all of the internships I’ve ever gotten.

How To Find Internships:

So how do you actually find an internships?

There’s a couple ways to go about it.

• LinkedIn: My go-to for just about everything. Most companies are on LinkedIn and are actively promoting jobs. It’s also imperative that you network with people. Definitely would recommend fleshing out your profile — something I’ll surely cover in a future post.

• Indeed: I personally don’t use it. I’ve seen far too many fishy job listings on there for my liking, but I’m sure you can find legit roles on there for sure.

• Handshake: See if your university is on Handshake! It’s no longer exclusive to just students, but there are so many early-career opportunities on there that you should definitely be on the lookout for.

• Job Fairs: If your university hosts a job fair, go to it! Look presentable, take copies of your resume. It’s good to network with recruiters at companies you find interesting and it’ll help put a face to your name when you apply.

• Company Websites: Do you have a favorite company? Maybe one you feel passionate about? Go to their career website and see what’s up! You never know what you might find.

I would be remiss not to mention a resource near and dear to my heart.

’s wonderful Trajectory Maneuvers series sends out plenty of opportunities in the world of Science Communication. Go subscribe to her if SciComm is your thing.

Keep Shooting:

As legendary U.S. hockey player Wayne Gretzky put it…

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

You’re going to get rejected so many times it hurts. You’ll probably have to stomach a thousand emails that all start the exact same way. “Thank you for taking the time to apply for [INSERT POSITION.] Unfortunately…”

It’s ok. That’s normal.

You have to keep applying no matter what. Don’t stop yourself from applying to an opportunity just because you think you won’t get it.

I didn’t think for a second I would hear back from NASA the first time I applied. Same thing with The White House. But I did.

You know what would guarantee me never hearing back? Not applying at all.

Quick tip: I recommend you start a tracker on Google Sheets or Excel of all the jobs you apply to and make sure to copy and paste the job description somewhere in there. There’s nothing worse than finally getting an email back and not remembering what you applied for.

Don’t know how to make one? Here’s my template!

Job Application Tracker Template

7.09KB ∙ XLSX file

Download

Download

Conclusion:

I hope this article helped you gain a basic understanding of the things you can do to help you land an internship.

Maybe it gave you some ideas on how to get experience or you learned something new about how you should format your resume.

I want you to remember one last thing: you aren’t your job.

You are probably a wonderful human being with friends and family that care about you. It can be so easy to tie all your self-worth into this. Remember that you have a life to live outside of work.

Take it one day at a time. Don’t pull your hair out over things you have no control over. Once you click submit on an application, that’s it. It’s mostly out of your hands. The sooner you accept that, the better.

You can apply for jobs and still enjoy a social life. It’s all about balance.

You can do this. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and ask any questions.

Now go out there and get the internship of your dreams!