April Is For Partying, Not Studying

Kramer Smash8 years ago

Spring break is behind us. The beaches have been trashed and cleaned up, while our man shitto trashes the people who clean them up. Little to do remains in this waning term but to wait for the lingering snow to melt, look for any lost pledges in the piles of melting white, and finally clean our cars (though, not necessarily in that order). There’s a month left, but it might as well only be a week or two what with the weather warming, the porch furniture beckoning, and new seasonal beers set to debut (try Redd’s newest ‘Wicked’ when you can; it’s fantastic).

The nature of spring semester weather can be party-prohibitive, at least in its early months. For northern/real colleges, few want to trudge a mile across campus through six inches of snow for the same lukewarm beer and juice served at every third house, or the same shot pitcher specials served at every other falling-in bar on campus. For its slow start, spring semester deserves to be backloaded with parties: starting with St. Patrick’s Day and Mardi Gras celebrations, escalating before, during, and immediately after spring break, reaching a peak around springtime initiation, and culminating in some quality “Fuck Finals” parties in mid-to-late April. Much to my dismay, too many people treat April as the de facto final’s month when it should be the biggest party month of the year.

April is a time for depravity. It isn’t the time to gather our books and seek refuge in cafes and libraries, as though prepping for finals is akin to getting ready for a category five hurricane preparing to make landfall over a trailer park full of broken glass and hypodermic needles. The semester’s final days, and the balminess they bring, are for outdoor drinking, pickup games, NFL draft predictions, hockey playoffs, and early season baseball, not to be squandered on library marathons of pouring over vague online notes plagued by the TA’s beyond-poor-grasp-on-the-English-language notes.

The timing of final exams is not an excuse to get soft. Absent of the warm weather privilege enjoyed by our southern brethren earlier in the semester, better days are upon us and these days are not to be taken for granted. Today was in the mid 40s in my neck of the woods, and it’s only getting warmer. Some of us are only afforded so many mild days in our finite college careers, and life as an undergraduate is too short to throw away what nice days we have by studying — much less studying indoors.

Whether this test-prep paradigm shift calls for better studying initiative earlier in the semester, easier courses from the outset, or just better time management all around, there’s no excuse for being like the rest of the higher education boners that choose to waste the best days of the entire school year indoors with their faces in their text books wishing they were roof drinking..