How are you spending your summer? Many students fill their break with summer jobs and socializing. It's also a popular time to reconnect with some of the activities that were put aside in favor of studying during the school year.

Hobbies are a great way to relax.  But many students don’t realize that they can also be the start of a fulfilling career path.

Jim Lang is an entrepreneurial guru and author of Make Your Own Breaks: Become an Entrepreneur and Create Your Own Future. His talks about how you can turn a hobby into a money-making venture. You're probably thinking, "How on earth could birdwatchers turn their hobby into cold hard cash?"

Lang is no birdwatcher, "but I expect most birders are also photographers. They could photograph birds and sell the photos, or produce books of their bird pictures."

He says birdwatchers could "possibly cut a contract with environmental and wildlife services to search for particular endangered species. They could produce handbooks and guides on the best places to find birds and related activities for travelers to enjoy while they're birding."

Lang isn't finished yet. "They could research problems birders may have with birdwatching equipment: cameras, binoculars, clothing -- and develop new product lines that solve those problems.

"They could paint birds, as Audubon did, a century ago. They could become professional speakers and lecture on the subject of birds."

You can tell from Lang's entrepreneurial zeal that the limitations of your mind are the only things that can keep you from turning pastimes into material gain.

Wendy Fox, co-owner of CareerWorks, a business specializing in consulting, writing and training for career development, agrees that there's no end to employment possibilities when it comes to your hobbies.

Although she doesn't know the statistics, her experience tells her, "that the amount of people creating their own career opportunities is rising."

Just as Lang helps people turn hobbies into money, Kino Ruth, the director of the Career Center at Hamilton College in New York, encourages job seekers to include their extracurricular activities in their resumes.

Ruth says every skill is transferable. Volunteer activities, involvement in sports or clubs and any leadership roles that might have come from that will demonstrate to a future employer that you are someone special.

"Many of our recruiters look for students who have a variety -- sometimes a wide variety -- of extracurricular activities," Ruth says. Outside-of-school activities are "one of the easiest and best ways for students to show that they've learned those really critical people-to-people skills."

You might wonder how the surprise party you organized for your best friend relates to your application for a sales job. But based on your experience of throwing the party, you could describe yourself as showing initiative, being organized and carrying out a task to completion.

Of course, some hobbies are more conducive to getting you hired than others. While a World Wrestling Federation obsession has entrepreneurial possibilities -- you could produce a WWF newsletter -- a passion for the exploits of wrestlers probably won't reflect well on you in a job interview. In fact, some hobbies have negative connotations and can hurt your chances of landing your dream job.

There are some hobbies that complement careers in a more indirect way. Taking courses in creative writing, public speaking and speed-reading are other fun activities that can also enhance your career.

Pastimes create opportunities to network and make contact with people you might otherwise never meet. With so many ways to use pastimes for career building, there are even more reasons to pursue and enjoy them. Have some fun this summer with your hobbies -- and keep your eyes open to see where those hobbies could lead you.