Like many things in life, college carries several stereotypes which project images of what we think certain things should look and feel like. Ignorant outsiders, swayed by images in the media, are of the opinion that fraternity houses are party houses, campus food will be delicious, and spring break will be a drunken escapade somewhere on a warm beach. While these naïve assumptions have the potential to have a bit of truth to them, they are, for the most part, completely and utterly false. However, there was always something that I could depend on, and that is spring break being warm.
Whether or not you're drunk on a beach is irrelevant, I just want my spring break to be in spring and not in winter. With the weather currently the way it is, not even the part about the weather being warm will be true of the spring break stereotype. What has me baffled is the blatant fact that it could be; spring break could be warm, if only it were in the middle or at the end of March instead of the very beginning. It doesn’t make sense to me why the university didn’t just wait a few more weeks to give us our break.
Like most students, I look forward to time off of school whenever I can get it, but at the same time I want my time off to be enjoyable. I’m not going to spend hours beside a pool if the temperature outside is below 75 degrees, and not everyone has the luxury of taking a trip to the Caribbean. If this cold weather keeps up, I can see thousands of UF students spending their breaks inside instead of enjoying the warm spring air in the great outdoors.
I’m sure many students have noticed, our spring break does not coincide with that of any of the other big schools in Florida. FSU’s and UCF’s spring break starts March 9th and Miami’s spring break is March 23rd. While that school up north is inferior to ours in every way, many of us still have friends that chant the tomahawk, which means we probably don’t get to see them that often. Spring break could have been the perfect opportunity to rekindle those relationships and catch up with old friends. Unfortunately, by the time the students up north get out for their spring break, we’ll already begrudgingly be back at Library West studying for the second half of the semester. If only the school waited just one more week, this problem could have been solved.
Spring break has the potential to be the greatest and most epic week of our lives. More than likely though, it’ll be a simple, casual week back home to relax and spend time with family, which is perfectly okay too. Whichever end of the spectrum your spring break falls in, I just wish it was after the cold snap and the start of warm, sunny spring. After all, no one wants to spend spring break huddled beside a fire wearing three sweatshirts at once, unless of course, you decided to go skiing for spring break, in which case the timing of UF’s spring couldn’t have been better, and my entire argument is void.
