Coming back from winter break is always a whirlwind of emotions. While you may dread having to go back to setting an alarm every morning and subsisting on dining hall mystery meat, you have to admit that your family was starting to grate on you and you can't wait to be back with all your roomies and friends. Giggly reunions are had, countless how was your break?'s shared with every acquaintance you've ever made, and you fall back into the academic-year routine pretty quickly.

But things aren't quite the same as they were last semester -- whether you're a freshman or a seasoned upperclassman, there are certain things about the spring semester that set it apart from the fall.

1. The end is in sight.

Once you've finished your first semester, you begin to realize that college is a lot like Narnia or the land of the lotus-eaters, in that time passes differently here. What felt like an eternity simultaneously seems like it happened literally five minutes ago, and after the holidays that time seems to speed up even more. Before you know it, you'll be packing up your stuff for the summer and lamenting that your suitcases have apparently managed to shrink (because obviously you haven't bought a ton of new crap because that would be silly and irresponsible, duh).

2. The weather?

Winter break is the perfect time to switch out your seasonal wardrobes, leaving behind those chunky Christmas sweaters and dusting off your favorite shorts... except not, because January is still a thing. And then February. And then the traitorous March, who will be brisk but sunny one day and freeze your nose off the next. Spring semester is really great if you like heading to campus in the morning with three necessary layers on, and then dying of heat stroke by noon!

3. Relationships. Relationships everywhere.

I don't know if this is an extension of what the youngin's call "cuffing season" or if it's a biological reaction to all the flowers in bloom, but come springtime everyone is making their Netflix & chill Facebook official. Cue happy couples and embittered cat ladies (sans cats, thanks to university housing) glaring at each other from across the green.

4. Spring cleaning (please, for all of our sakes).

Listen, last semester was busy and with the holidays coming up, there were a lot of other priorities. Totally understandable. Sometimes you just go five months without lifting a broom while things congeal in the refrigerator, it happens to the best of us. The first week of the spring semester is the perfect time to wash your coffee-stained sheets and toss the curiously green bowl of Something in the back of the fridge.

5. You're utterly unprepared for classes.

No matter how long you've been doing this whole college thing, it seems a universal truth that your fall semester backpack consists of four separate, clean notebooks and at least three pens... and your spring semester backpack contains two sheets of looseleaf, a leaky pen, and 85 receipts from Dunkin Donuts. You'll manage.

6. You learn/remember where the campus gym is.

Kudos to y'all who are going year-round, but us Seasonals have this system down. Fall is for prepping our bodies for the holidays via ordering out three times a week, culminating in a winter break of home-cooked meals and leftovers for eons. Spring is for ordering out three times a week and crying on the treadmill the next morning.

7. Everyone and their mother is abroad.

Especially true for Arcadia, the spring semester is when most students decide to go abroad. Those of us who don't go are left to befriend a used napkin and find ways to amuse ourselves while all our stupid friends have stupid fun without us on their stupid different continents. Campus becomes a ghost town... or it feels that way, because you know there's no way you're going to go out and make new friends. Honestly, who does that?

8. You've forgotten 95 percent of what you were doing before break.

Your work study boss is like, "Oh, just pick up where you left off with that project!" and you're like... "Yeeeeah let's do that. What was my login info again? Uh huh, and I type that in where? Right, and this little thingy here is the computer?" With all new classes and professors and schedules, it can be super easy to just wipe your brain completely in preparation for the new semester... forgetting to hold on to the information that you will actually still need.

9. Spring break!

It seems like you've been back for approximately five minutes before everyone is planning their wild spring breaks and posting their countdowns all over Instagram. As if we really needed something to make the semester feel like it's moving faster, the anticipation for spring break is your motivation for getting out of bed every morning.

10. Thesis.

Even if you're not a senior, you've seen what theses do to people. You've seen families torn apart, empires destroyed, industrial-sized dispensers of coffee decimated in the wake of the dreaded Thesis. Spring semester is the time for seniors to take up permanent residence in the library and to threaten bodily harm to any freshman who thinks they need an entire study room to themselves. And they would not be wrong.

11. Yay, existential meltdowns!

Some of us (*looks pointedly in mirror*) have a special talent for having existential meltdowns at any time, regardless of semester or year or astrological phenomenon. But, just as you can see the summer in sight, during the spring semester you can really feel that you are one step closer to graduating college and living in the real world and selling your organs to pay off your soul-crushing debt. It's great. The flowers are in bloom, the squirrels are out in force, and the air is rich with the scent of student tears and empty wallets. The true college experience.