With breaks so short, why go home?

By: SCOTT FOGEL – COMMUNICATIONS

Since my freshman year, when fall break rolled around and everyone that could leave left, I’ve wondered why. Why do we, the students, insist on running home for a measly three days when we have other breaks and holidays right around the corner?

Take fall break, only a few weeks away from Thanksgiving break when everyone goes home, yet everyone flees the University like there’s a plague. Maybe it’s mostly people that live close to school.

I don’t really understand those people. I mean, if you choose to live close enough that you could run home whenever you want without thinking about it, then you’re probably going to do it. On the other hand, if you can do that whenever you want, why do you need to do it when you could spend the break hanging out with your friends and partying in the student neighborhood?

That’s what I thought was going to happen when I was a freshman. I would think that would be every student’s first instinct when they learn that “spring break” is really just a long weekend. Instead of running home for four days, they can party it up with their friends the same way they do on St. Patrick ’s Day. School is ending soon, and as a graduating senior I know that, like so many of you, it will be a long time before I’m back in Dayton. So, I ask the question, why go home?

If we had longer breaks, it would be more viable for students who do not live nearby to go home. Arguably, they need longer breaks because they cannot go home on the weekend whenever they want. Then again, I doubt the school will make breaks longer unless people start staying on campus and causing “trouble” as a result of the short breaks we have now.
I mean, the factors are there, student breaks mean fewer officers on duty, less parties being broken up means louder and bigger parties and no classes for the next two or three days would be very tempting for those who want to work during the day and party that night without worry or stress. Of course, for that to happen the students would need to stay for the break.

Now, as I write this, UD is on Easter break, and after this the school year will rapidly come to a close. So it’s my hope that you’ll think about this article next year. When you hear from your friends and classmates that they’re going home for break so that they can sit around, sleep, eat and then sit around some more, encourage them to stay at school and party it up. If you have a house, make an event for every day. If break is three days, plan for a three day event.
Plan it in advance, so that when break comes people are excited for a weekend of fun, like they are for St. Patrick’s day. In fact it doesn’t even have to be well planned, during the NCAA games the University showed that it can gather at the drop of a…ball? There is no reason why we have to go out quietly over break.