It's 3 o'clock on a Friday. You have practically moved into the library for the past week, and you can't think straight anymore. You bubble in that last question, dot your last "i", and stand up to hand in your last final of the semester. A tear rolls down your eye as you leave the room, part happy tears that you're finally done, and part sad tears because you probably just failed it. Either way, you don't care because now you are stress-free for an entire month. It's winter break. After a long semester of tests and studying, it's finally time to go home and not think about any school work for five glorious weeks. Throughout the timeline of college, students see winter break differently:
Freshman Year
Chances are you still have a group chat with your 20 friends that you hung out with in high school and you guys have been making plans for winter break since you've left for school. You are super eager to get home and spend every day with your big friend group. All of your plans include them and the regular stuff that you did in high school. You've also been looking forward to food that's not from a dining hall and taking a shower without shoes on. You have been so homesick these past couple months and you're so excited you finally get to go home. The only thing you forgot about is now you can't chug a beer on a Tuesday or come home whenever you want. You still have parents with rules.
Sophomore Year
You finally have your core college friend group by this point and you are not ready to leave them for a whole month. Your big group from home has dwindled down to a few of your close friends that you're extremely excited to see, but other than that your winter break will most likely consist of avoiding eye contact when you see someone you graduated with at Target. The good news is there's finally time to make some money working at the mall and trying to shed off the college weight you gain every semester. You spend this break texting your school friends about how much you miss them and have probably Instagram'ed a picture of them with the caption "Can we go back yet???"
Junior Year
At this point, school is now your second home and the thought of leaving for five+ weeks makes you physically sick. The thing you look forward to most is watching a movie with your parents (even if it is on a Thursday night and you are usually getting ready for the bar at this time). Friday nights at a frat turn into passing around a bottle (or two) of wine with your best home friends catching up on the craziness of the past semester.
Senior Year
Winter break senior year is a weird time. You go from barely hanging out with kids you graduated with to taking shots at your hometown bar with some kid you think you sat with at lunch in high school. At this point, no one has time for the friend groups that were established in high school and everyone is just trying to make the best of these few weeks. Since everyone can (legally) drink at this point, you all go to the bars you never could growing up and it pretty much turns into a high school reunion. Suddenly everyone's friends with each other until January rolls around and you go back to never speaking again. This is your final break with no responsibility before you graduate and enter the real world so you soak up as much time with your parents while they still like you (even if you do take advantage of the "no responsibility" thing and wake up at 12 PM every afternoon).
All in all, winter break is a great time to relax and not think about all the work you have piling up. It's a long few weeks and you're usually bored as hell by the end, itching to get back to school with your people. Either way, it's a great time to spend time with family and give your liver and brain a break.
