Ranking School Breaks: A Definitive Guide Of The Best Times To Not Be In School

SteveHolt11 years ago

One of college’s greatest benefits is the vast amount of time you don’t have to spend attending class. Fall, Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring, and summer are all great times to relax at home, visit friends, or go on vacation. But which breaks are the best breaks?

Let’s “break” it down. *High fives a million angels*

5. Fall Break

I’m not hating on fall break by putting it in last place, because I love it. There just isn’t enough time to enjoy being out of school for it to be a “top four” break. Not all schools have a fall break, either. Some colleges eliminate it and repackage Thanksgiving as a full week, or tack it on to an already extensively long Christmas break.

If you have fall break, it’s infinitely better when it starts on Wednesday and rolls to Sunday, rather than a Friday to Tuesday break. Instead of spending an extended weekend at home, the best thing to do with fall break is visit friends at other colleges to see what they have to offer, especially if it’s a good football weekend.

4. Summer Break

I’ll go ahead and say it: summer break kind of sucks. For the first few weeks, it’s a blast. Everybody is home and you get to spend time with old friends and see how everybody from your past is slowly decaying into a lifetime of sadness and woeful obesity.

But once you hit Memorial Day weekend, the allure of being home fades and everybody gets busy. Whether it’s a shitty summer job, an internship, or summer school, summer break peaks early and then becomes a chore. By July 15, you’re ready to pack up your shit and drive back to campus.

3. Thanksgiving Break

You could make a serious argument that Thanksgiving break is the best, but because it’s situated between your last classes and finals, the overbearing weight of academic probation looming ahead can break your holiday spirits. That being said, being home with everybody for the first time since the start of school is awesome.

One way to make the most of Thanksgiving break is to bail on Monday and Tuesday classes and take the week off, giving you a full seven days to mentally prepare for finals the following week. It also gives you extra time to capitalize on:

• Hooking up with your ex-girlfriend who got into a better school and left you behind (I still love you, Sharon).
• Going out with your high school friends.
• Chilling with your crazy-ass extended family members.
• Eating delicious food.
• Watching a bunch of football.

2. Christmas Break

Yes, I’m calling it “Christmas” break, you fascists. There are no other important holidays over “Christmas” break that warrant any kind of name change. Christmas break owns. No longer are you worried about school and grades.

You passed your finals! You got a 2.0! You get to come back next semester!

It’s the perfect amount of time off. Everyone is home, and it’s really the only break where its guaranteed that everyone comes home. The local bars are hopping. It’s a long enough period that you don’t feel obligated to spend time with family over friends. Plus, halfway through Christmas break, there is just a day where you wake up and have a bunch of nice, new things you wanted (happy birthday, Jesus).

There is time to squeeze in a mini-vacation with your buds–just drive to a local (probably shitty) ski resort and spend, like, $200 on three days worth of terrible skiing, glorious drinking, and storytelling. New Year’s Eve parties are superb. College football is still on. When you start getting tired of being home, college says, “Okay, it’s time to come back.”

1. Spring Break

Spring Break isn’t real life. It just isn’t. For one week a year, you make your best attempt to poison yourself with as much alcohol as you can consume, fuck as many girls as you can find in a five-mile radius, and spend full days with chicks who are basically naked in a place that is 100 times more beautiful than your piece of shit college town.

Spring break is heaven. Parents pay for everything. Most likely, you’ll never see any of the people you meet ever again, so you don’t have to be polite or care about how you come across. Legends and lifelong memories are born here. You live off value menu double cheeseburgers. It’s a 168-hour alcohol and coke-fueled binge where social norms are thrown to the wayside and natural instinct is the only thing that matters.

Damn. It just doesn’t get better than that..

Image via YouTube