The waves are lapping against the shore. Your feet are in the sand, and the salty air is surrounding you. In your hand is a pina colada. And there's no emails, no slight messages, no midterms.
This is the ideal college spring break, or at least it is for some people. But sometimes, it's hard to plan the dream vacation when you are burnt out from school. Most Northwestern students usually spend the 48 hours before spring break taking final exams, and the time before that, studying for them. From the Daily Northwestern, I'm Erika Schmidt.
This is season two, episode nine of Digital Diaries, a weekly podcast following the college experience, and asking students a question about Life on Northwestern. This week, we talk to students about how they're spending spring break. Wine Breaks sophomore Daniela Decobe says she wishes spring break was longer, but this quarter is one she said she will never plan to think about again. I'm going to hide it from my memory and pretend it didn't happen, but I'm here, so I'm happy I made it through, but I would never do it again.
How are you planning to recover during your break? Not thinking about school, if I hear the word Northwestern, get away from me, I'm going to go home and be with my family. I'll steal Georgia to be exact. And then I'm going to travel to Houston, Texas for fun.
And not think about anything related to school until I'm there at my first class on Tuesday. Her advice is simple, remove any and every thought about school from your brain over break. Anything you need to prepare for spring quarter, do it while you're at school so that when you actually step away from campus, you can step away from campus completely. Like your mind isn't lingering on registering for classes or figuring out if everything is sorted out, like get your housing, get your academics sorted out so that when you go on break, you can spend time literally just doing nothing if that's what you want to do.
Wine Breaks senior Mia Castle only lives an hour away from campus in Elgin, Illinois. Castle says that because she lives close to home, she gets to travel home often, but she knows other students who don't have that luxury. Like my older mate, Nora, she's from China. And one week isn't enough time for a lot of people to travel home, so I think for them especially it's not enough time.
Personally, I don't have enough time to prepare because we have another quarter. Castle said that her past college spring breaks were spent in quarantine conditions. She was a freshman during Northwestern's fully remote learning. It didn't feel like a break, honestly.
I felt like I was doing the same thing day after day, just not having to log onto a Zoom. I still spent the whole day in my house. I still spent all that time sitting watching Netflix, FaceTiming people as much as I could just without the stress of having assignments. But Castle's plans this year are filled with a little less rest and a little more partying.
It's her 21st birthday on March 24th. I do have plans to go to towel. It's a nightclub restaurant in Chicago. Might also just go to this place I discovered called the Pottery.
It's 21 and older, but it's mini golf. And they have a bar in it. That's why you have to be 21. So it'll be a lot of fun to be home and to be able to celebrate properly, especially the last couple of birthdays that had been a March birthday, has been highly impacted by COVID.
So this is the first year I truly get to go out. No masks, no vaccination requirements. Castle says she uses her breaks to do the things she doesn't have the time for during the academic year. Planning things for the summer, honestly, because of course, it's been so fast doing a lot of time.
Last year, over spring break, I spent a lot of time preparing for my summer internships, and that's what I'll be doing this time. But Castle also adds that students should focus on whatever they need over the break, whether that is getting rest or going out with friends. Don't feel pressured to be super productive. Obviously take advantage of the time, but if you do need to take a break, if you need to just relax, just connect completely, honor that for yourself.
But if you do have things you have to do and you have the bandwidth, then do take advantage of that time. But if you can't, don't beat yourself about it, because I've spent time on both sides of that. Being in Weinberg's sophomore, Quinn Shumway says Northwestern students don't get as much time to relax as students who are on the semester system. He offers an alternative to extending spring break.
I think that a one-week spring break is very standard, and it might be hard to change that, but the best thing would probably be to give us more like three-day weekends in winter and spring quarter. We literally get one and it's MLK today. Shumway plans to catch a flight to that beach paradise I mentioned in the beginning. I'm going to stay with my friend in Florida, and I still have a beach all day.
Shumway said he recommends spending break by simply existing. No schoolwork, just rest. I think Northwestern has kind of a culture of always trying to get people to do more and more stuff, and everyone should remember that even if it seems like everyone else is doing something, it's okay to not take on one more thing in favor of taking care of yourself. All Shumway gets to be chilling at a beach.
Maybe you will be binge-watching Netflix or reading that book you haven't touched since winter break. No matter what you're doing, maybe you picked up on a common theme, that you should be taking spring break to relax. From the Daily Northwestern, I'm Erika Schmidt. Thanks for listening to the last episode of this season's Digital Diaries.
This episode was reported and produced by me. The audio editor of the Daily Northwestern is myself. The digital managing editors are Joanne Hainer and Olatunji Osha Williams, and the editor-in-chief is Alex Perry. Make sure to subscribe to the Daily Northwestern's podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or SoundCloud to hear more episodes like this.