By: Brenden Schwartz, Staff Writer
Spring Break is here, and it’s time for students and professors to take a break from the high-stress life of college.
What some people may not realize, though, is that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this will be the first real Spring Break Newman has had in two years. In 2021, Spring Break was eliminated to help cut down on the chance students would leave and come back to campus with COVID. And in 2020, students left for spring break but didn’t return to in-person classes for the rest of the year.
If you’re a junior at Newman, that means that you’ve never experienced a real Spring Break until now. Still, this reality hasn’t hit many Newman students.
“Woah, I didn’t realize that this is my first spring break in college,” said Liz Raehpour.
Raehpour, a criminal justice major in the class of 2023, is taking this year’s break to study for her LSAT and work at Redrock Canyon Grill.
“I’m going use the time to be as productive as I can while taking a break from class,” she said.
the students said they were just looking forward to having free time to study and not worry about classes. Talia Powers, a biology major, said she would just be relaxing and studying for the MCAT.
“It’s exciting to finally have an actual spring break for once,” Powers said, “even if I’ll just be studying for most of it.”
Some students are stuck studying but aren’t as excited about it as Powers and Raehpour. Michelle Tong, a junior nursing student, said that she’s been looking forward to having a Spring Break and was bummed she missed out for the past two years but is disappointed because now she has to prepare for her nursing exams.
“The two spring breaks I got, COVID took away,” Tong said, “because now I have to study for frigging nursing school.”
Unlike Tong, there are students who have been anticipating this Spring Break and get to take advantage of it. A junior studying biology pre-med, Alyssa Pham, was sad having to miss Spring Break for the past two years.
“Spring break was really lonely and boring,” Pham said. “We couldn’t do anything like travel or typical spring break activities.”
Pham said she played a lot of video games during the pandemic. She tried picking up a couple of hobbies like making dalgona coffee or making crochet, but nothing compared to taking a fun trip with friends she said. Pham said she is looking forward to having an enjoyable Spring Break this year.
“I am really excited for this year’s spring break and going to Colorado with my friends,” Pham said.
Pham isn’t the only student taking advantage of Spring Break. Junior Kimfuema, a junior biochemistry major, didn’t realize this was his first spring break. At first, he said, he was just going to relax and get some sleep, but once he realized how significant this year’s break was, he changed his tune.
“Wait what?” Kimfuema said. “Bro I forgot about that. No wonder I felt so burnt out for some reason.”
He decided he was going to change his plans and make his mom go with him on a trip.
“Now that I know this is my first Spring Break in a while, maybe I’ll plan something,” Kimfuema said. “Maybe I’ll make my mom go out to some other state or a carnival, I don’t know, I’ll just go crazy.”
And if his mom won’t go, Kimfuema said, he’ll just grab his friends and go on some adventure, which is exactly what one group of Newman students is planning. Members of the Sloppy Joe improv team decided they’d take advantage of the break and take a trip to Chicago. They plan on checking out the Second City improv troupe, the “Bean,” Navy Pier, and a couple of museums.
PHOTO: Courtesty photo, Unsplash
