The transition from a relaxing winter break back into the seemingly indefinite schedule of constant work and exhaustion is never a simple task. As I am a naïve freshman this year, I originally predicted the four weeks spanning from Christmas through mid-January to be far too short of a break. After all, I had been in college for an entire semester, dragging myself out of bed to my 9:55 a.m. classes, always worried if my schedule would overlap with that of the custodians who cleaned my bathroom for me every day in my residence hall, having to pick out what vegetables would go in my omelet at Gordon’s, so on and so on. In my mind, one month would simply not be enough time to recover from all of these stressful freshmen woes.
I quickly found that I was wildly mistaken. As soon as I arrived back home in Minnetonka, Minnesota in December, I found myself missing Madison. My brother and parents were asleep by 9:30 p.m., and I resorted to talking to myself as I tried to find spaces for my belongings in the room that was once my bedroom, but is now used as my mother’s crafting studio.
My schedule for each day of break looked a lot like this: Wake up at 11 a.m., eat breakfast, work on memorizing a Nicki Minaj song or two, call my mom and ask what would be for dinner, watch the music video to Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk and pretend I was one of the Motown backup dancers, organize my sock drawer, think about going to the gym and then not go, greet my family as they got home from work and school, eat dinner, comment “ew” on Justin Bieber’s Instagram photos just to see what kind of backlash I would get from 12-year-old girls who live to protect Justin from haters like me and finally as I was about to drown in my exhaustion from the long day, go to bed. What a life, man.
Despite my organized and carefully planned schedule, I never felt as though I accomplished anything during the long days. What I learned is that relaxing and doing absolutely nothing is only beneficial for so long. I am a people person and I love to stay busy, so a month at home with no car and an absent family was enough to make me revisit the friendship bracelet I started making five years ago. So much free time destroyed the schedule that I had built during first semester and made it nearly impossible for me to complete anything that I had originally aspired to do over winter break. I felt as though I had an infinite amount of time, but I have to say, the month really got away from me.
Things I did not do over winter break despite my best efforts and planning: switch my WiscMail to Office365, clean out my backpack and throw away old papers, exercise, make any money… I should just stop there.
As students at UW-Madison, we are granted this month off from our rigorous academic calendars, and I have learned that it is important to use this time wisely. While it may seem appealing to use the full four weeks for a well-deserved hiatus, the break is a wonderful opportunity to do something productive, or dare I say it, educational. In between my days spent in bed alternating between watching Netflix and napping, I was able to squeeze in a day at a public relations company based out of Minneapolis. I shadowed the employees and learned a lot about a profession that I have interest in possibly pursuing—something that I would not necessarily have the time or opportunity to do while taking a full course load at Madison.
Breaks are both liberating and necessary. However, I feel that I could have benefitted from a month-long internship, a study abroad program or a volunteer project during my time off. We all need a break, but from experience I can confidently advise you that a month is simply too much time to spend doing nothing. Next year, I will do things differently. After all, there are only so many Nicki Minaj songs to memorize in this world.
Marisa is a freshman writer and is undecided on a major. What do you think of her take on making break productive? Do you disagree? We’d like to hear from you. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
