Is Winter Break Harder Than Finals?

Everyone’s restless because it’s time to close the books and go home. Finals week is over, and we’ve turned in our final projects, term papers and research reports. We’ll find out our grades in two weeks through mailed report cards or even online. Our bags are packed, and we’re flying to homes all across the country to spend the holidays with our families and old friends.

The weeks before winter break can be both exciting and nerve-racking for college students. It’s the most stressful time of the semester because of all the studying we must do to prepare for the crucial final exams. Usually, these tests count for more than 25% of a student’s grade.

A low final exam score can ruin a student’s high average and bring him or her down two whole letter grades.

Studying is critical, so dorms enforce 24-hour quiet periods. No overnight guests are allowed, and resident assistants patrol the floors looking to write up anyone violating noise regulations. Students with laptops and textbooks litter the lounge areas, quizzing classmates and comparing lecture notes. We drink a lot of coffee and caffeine energy drinks during this week.

Despite the high levels of stress felt throughout the libraries and dorms, students also feel a sense of accomplishment.

After a two-hour final is over and we’ve turned in our exam booklets, we are proud of our diligent studying.

One test down and three more to go. We hope our hard work pays off with strong test scores, so we can show Mom and Dad that their money isn’t going to waste.

We’re also glad to be going home. For three weeks, we can sleep in our own beds with actual mattresses, not plastic foam boards. We also get to taste home cooking again, as well as eat more healthfully. Dorm food tends to be greasy, and the vegetables are so boiled that they no longer contain nutritional value. Plus, we’ll finally see our friends from high school; we’ve been able to say only a few short words to one another through instant messaging and e-mails.

College students live in two separate worlds. Away at school, we’re free from parents, we eat what we want, and we sleep at all hours of the night and day. Our friends are different in college; we’ve known them for only a couple of years, but we also live down the hall from them or two floors above.

During the school year, our mind-set is a little different. Sometimes, we’re swamped with homework and complaining about the difficulty of a certain class.

Other times, we’re out having fun on weekends with our friends. It’s a very different lifestyle, often filled with pressure and anxiety.

Leaving college life to come back home is a completely different experience.

At home, we’re no longer constantly surrounded by our peers. We live alone, so we don’t have to tiptoe around when our roommates go to sleep earlier than we do. There’s also a lot less stress because the semester is over, and of course, we don’t have any homework over the break.

We’re free to spend our days visiting people and sleeping past noon on weekdays. The winter break is truly a vacation away from annoying suitemates, bad food and constant schoolwork. It can never come soon enough, either.

Yet, oddly enough, the vacation can sometimes seem too long. By the time the New Year comes around, many of us are ready to repack our bags and go back to our apartments and dorms. We begin to grow tired of the dullness of living at home, and we wonder how we ever survived for 18 years with our parents all under one roof.

The initial week of feeling glad to see our brothers and sisters has long since passed. Now the fighting over clothes and who gets to take the car next weekend begins. We’re ready to go back to our freedom, when we didn’t have to tell our parents where we are going or what time we plan to come home.

We’re also ready to begin new classes and finish up the requirements for our majors. Just as we wanted to come home, we are also eager to leave. We’ll have five more months of intensive schoolwork, as well as fun with our friends, before finals week pops up again in May.

It’s a cycle. By that time, we’ll be itching to come home to our families once more.