It would appear that spring is finally here in Minnesota. The snow has almost ceased entirely, the grass is yielding copious amounts of chlorophyll, and the sunshine has found its way through the grim clouds shielding the ground. College students are getting antsy as finals are approaching rather quickly and we are met with the anticipation of moving back home for the summer months to work ourselves into oblivion in a rash attempt obtain as much income as we can to pay off our student loan debt and tuition for the following school year. We all share this unanimous notion that we haven’t seen grass or flowers or even the sun really, since early October and it has us itching with desire to go be active with our friends outside and enjoy the warmth that we’ve so missed.

Of course, this isn’t without its difficulties, as the implications of warm weather amidst spring activities and clothing has us facing the not-so-simplistic-to-overcome spring slide. The spring slide is a familiar concept to anyone who has ever gone to school before, especially undergraduate students who are paying thousands of dollars and working harder than they previously thought of as possible to work to earn a piece of paper that will take them around four years to earn. Essentially, for anyone who might be unfamiliar, I can define it as such: the Spring slide is the anticipatory effect caused by an impending summer season that produces an aching feeling in the pit of one’s stomach and a loss of sense of motivation post the initial exposure to green grass and sunny skies; occurs most frequently in locations where snow is generally present around eight months out of the year.

When spring sliding, a few common symptoms are: fatigue, incessant sun-burning, sleep deprivation initiated by pulling all-nighters (or 2-3 a.m. study sessions) to get your life together so you don’t fail your expensive classes, homesickness imparted upon you by your mother who keeps calling to describe to you in detail everything she wants to do with you this summer exclaiming on repeat how excited she is for you to move home, inexplicable energy bursts that just revitalize you at random times without any presence of caffeine because you are simply a sun-junkie, and constant desire to be surrounded by your friends.

So, how can you combat the burning desire to spring slide out of sheer burnt-outedness? Well, we can have study sessions in or outdoors with friends who motivate us. We all have friends who push us to get our crap together and friends who prevent us from getting anything accomplished, and the friends that can swing like a pendulum either way on us depending upon the day, and merely two out of those three friends are the ones you want to be with during your spring slide. Another tactic could be setting alarms to force yourself to set aside certain times for certain things or to establish a system for when specific tasks need to be completed by. You might even find yourself wanting to work ahead on the weekends or on your morning breaks so that if you do start to slide and have trouble holding yourself to a task, you will fall right on schedule rather than behind it.

Unfortunately, none of these plans are quite fool-proof, yet, they all are ideas that I’ve found effective or some of the friends I’ve been studying with for the past two weeks have found effective, so give them a shot, and stick with it, you only have a few more weeks to go and then you can breathe again. Well, at least until next year, when the spring slide inevitably sweeps you completely off your feet again.