Students should use their spring break to be productive and prevent later stress. If students get bombarded with work, it could take away from the other opportunities that spring break allows so it is best to plan things out at a pace that suits the individual student.

Homework

“When I think about spring break, one of the big things I hear, especially from students who are feeling stressed out before spring break, is that they want to use it as an opportunity to like get caught up on everything,” said Angela Daigneault, licensed clinical social worker for Counseling and Consultation services.

Teachers should be aware that assigning too much work over break could lead to the exact opposite of productiveness.

“I think that teachers give us too much work for spring break. They’re like ‘Oh you have a full week, here’s all this homework.’ But with all of them giving us all of that homework on our break, I don’t think there’s enough time to do what is expected of us,” said Kelsey Conrad, junior elementary education major.

The bright side is that students do in fact have a whole week to get work done without the burden of classes.

Apply

Working on scholarship, job and internship applications can take time that students may not have over the course of a school year.

“ … [Students should be] working on organizing projects, or getting yourself prepared for stuff that is coming up at the end of the semester, or maybe even looking into something that will get you prepped for summer internships, or things like that,” Daigneault said.

Spring break is a good time to focus on scholarships. Students can apply for summer internships or jobs. Students who are close to graduation can take the time to contact certain employers they may be interested in working with over the summer.

Choose your own pace

This week allows for students to plan out exactly what they feel like getting done rather than the set schedule they are forced to follow the rest of the semester.

“People always talk about how they don’t get a chance to read anything they really enjoy reading, or they really wish they could go exercise … take that time to recharge and reenergize so that you have more energy and ability to focus when you need to coming up in the last few weeks of the semester,” Daigneault said.

Spring break is a time off, which means everything can be done at a comfortable pace rather than rushing to meet a deadline.