With many students working, interning and traveling this summer, Stanford News Service asked faculty to reflect on what they did during summer breaks from college.

Their stories were as varied as their academic disciplines.

Whether it was working the night shift at a warehouse, cleaning bed sheets at a nursing home, interning for a major news network, Congress member or public defender, working at a hotel in Japan or jumping from an airplane – the summer experiences faculty had as students provided some unexpected and valuable life lessons.

They learned how feeling nervous can be helpful and sometimes necessary. They saw that failure may offer more learning potential than success. They discovered that the path to one’s career isn’t always direct, and that a “dream job” might not be the right fit, after all. They found that defying norms and expectations can lead to profound, personal transformations.

For some faculty, even ordinary jobs led to extraordinary experiences that changed how they viewed the world, inspiring questions about social justice, democracy, artificial intelligence and gender equality – topics that became the foundation of their research and academic career.

From summers in 1963 to as recent as 2007, here are some of their stories.