Finals week is finally over for most colleges, which means that summer vacation is finally here! That means heading straight to the pools and enjoying the summer stress-free! However, for most students in college, sometimes when you are finished with the semester, you feel like you should work or do something to keep yourself busy. You’ve spent the entire semester caught up in homework and stress that it feels weird to relax. You eventually run out of things to do and run into summer boredom. However, just because the semester is over with doesn’t mean that you can’t find things to keep yourself busy. Here are eight ways to combat any boredom that you encounter during your summer vacation.

1. Think about getting a summer job

One of the best ways to get rid of boredom during the summer is to find a job. Having a job during the summer can help keep you busy while also helping you to keep your tuition and student loans under control. However, finding a job can be hard, which is why it’s best to start searching as soon as you can.

The best way to get a summer job is to put as many applications as you can to various places that you want to work at. It’s something I will be doing as soon as I can. Just make sure that if you are going on vacation this summer that you let the place that you’re planning to work at know beforehand. Otherwise, you may end up skipping the vacation.

2. Pick up a new hobby

One way to keep yourself busy during the summer is to find a hobby that you’re interested in. If you’ve always wanted to try a new instrument or try painting, you’ll have more time during the summer to start investing time into it. Just make sure that it’s something that you enjoy or can invest a lot of time into.

Whenever you’re bored during the summer, you can always see if your friends or family are available to spend time with you. The best part about the summer is if your friends aren’t working, you can hang out with them more often! Especially if one of your friends has a pool. You can have a grill out or see if your friend is willing to host a party at their house.

3. Hang out with friends or family

If your friends are unfortunately busy during the summer, you can use the time as an opportunity to spend more time with your family! You can have a party at your house and invite family members. Or you could try having a movie night. Whatever the case, hanging out with friends or family is the best way to combat any boredom during the summer.

If you're going on vacation this summer, you can take the time to create a list of some things that you want to do during your vacation. If you are going to Florida, for example, you could look up some restaurants to eat or activities to enjoy when you go on vacation.

4. Make a to-do list for a future vacation

You could also create a list of what you need to pack to on vacation so that you won’t spend hours trying to figure out what to pack when you go on vacation. Creating a list of things to do will keep you busy while also serving as a reminder of the fun vacation that you can look forward to going to during the summer.

5. Go to an amusement park

If you live anywhere near an amusement park, you could try investing getting a pass to go to the amusement park anytime that you feel bored! If you don’t have the money, you can simply save up your money and invest in spending a day at the amusement park. Going to an amusement park is a great way to have fun during the summer!

If there are a lot of rollercoaster at the amusement park and you are trying to combat your fear of roller coasters, you can try working on it over the summer. I used to be terrified of rollercoasters until my friend forced me to ride some of them and I realized that I found that I loved riding roller coasters! Try going on the biggest ride that gives you the most anxiety first in order to conquer your fear. And trust me, it is worth it when you finally conquer your fears.

6. Make time for exercising

Spending the summer trying to get in a shape is a good way to keep yourself busy. When you first start exercising, it’s always the worst. However, when you start getting in the hang of it, you start to find that you enjoy exercising. It also gives you more energy and helps tone your muscles. Exercising is one way to find a goal during the summer that you want to complete and trying to meet that goal during the summer.

7. Create a summer reading list

If you're like me and love reading but found that you have no time to read during the semester, now is the time to catch up on reading! You can create a list of all of the books that you want to read during the summer and start working on checking off the list. There are a lot of good books that come out in the summer, so it’s the best time to choose what to read over the summer.

If you major in education, you can also try reading a few books that will help you with teaching. There are tons of books on teaching that give good advice about teaching. Also, if you are going to be a language arts teacher, you can find books that the students in the grade level that your planning on teaching read, and try reading some of the books that they may good to use in a classroom. Reading books that are centered around the grade level your planning on teaching is a good way to get a perspective on what books you may implement in your classroom instruction.

8. Go to the movies

Last but not least, if you are bored during the summer, the best way to enjoy the summer is by going to the movies. There are tons of really good movies coming out this summer! There are movies like “The Incredibles 2,” “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” and “Mission Impossible: Fallout” which are all coming out this summer!

If you’re still trying to recover from watching “The Avengers: Infinity War”, you can try re-watching all the Marvel movies over the summer. Some of them may help you to figure out what may be coming in the second movie for “The Avengers” (which I know all of us marvel fans are still raveling over what that ending means for the next movie). Spending the summer catching up on new movies, or old movies, is a great way to avoid becoming bored during the summer.

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So, if you find yourself fighting against boredom during the summer, you can find tons of things to keep yourself busy during the summer! The best part about summer is that you now have more time to spend enjoying doing some of the things that you had no time for during the semester! And every college student knows that they’d rather have trouble finding something to do than be stressed from too much homework or tests during the semester.