Words from the wise
Jessica Trumbull
Issue date: 2/10/09 Section: Editorial
I know it's a little early in the game for me to be shelling out any advice, seeing as I haven't even left the country yet, but for those thinking about studying abroad, here's a word of warning: when you look at study abroad programs for the spring semester, try to find one that starts earlier than late February.
Sure, a two-and-a-half month Christmas break sounds nice - and after the craziness of a fall semester at Denison, I wanted one - but it's definitely not all it's cracked up to be.
Maybe someone else would see it differently, but when I was little, I was the nerdy kid who was ready for summer break to be over by the end of July.
Now, as a college student, I've grown to enjoy my free time a little more, but I'm still the same kid at heart. As July turns into August, I start to miss using my brain and start wishing I was back at Denison with my friends, taking classes and doing research.
Of course, this desire always fades rapidly within the first week of the fall semester.
But this past semester really wore me out, and I thought that maybe things would be different this time around. Maybe a nice, long break would do me some good instead of just making me antsy.
This was not the case.
For the first few weeks, it was wonderful staying up late reading trashy magazines instead of library books for my research paper.
It was bliss to be able to wake up late without fear of sleeping through all my classes for the day. It's been awesome hanging out with my family and friends.
But now that everyone's back at college and my little brother is in school all day, I've got a bad case of cabin fever.
Thankfully, my break hasn't been entirely unproductive - I've been working for the newspaper I interned with last summer, and in the meantime I'm trying to find myself another internship for next summer so I don't have to worry about it while I'm in Germany.
But other than those semi-professional endeavors, I've been sitting on my butt, to be brutally honest. And it's stopped feeling so great to be doing so little.
Thankfully, I'll be leaving two weeks from when this issue of The Denisonian is published, so I actually have to start getting ready now.
I've started doing some last-minute shopping for things I still need for the trip, and I've begun making my packing lists.
So I'm almost ready to leave. Almost.
But until then, if you've got any advice for how to cure this boredom, please let me know.
Check out Jessica's study-abroad blog at http://web.me.com/jessicatrumbull.
Jessica arrives in Freiberg, Germany on February 24th.
Sure, a two-and-a-half month Christmas break sounds nice - and after the craziness of a fall semester at Denison, I wanted one - but it's definitely not all it's cracked up to be.
Maybe someone else would see it differently, but when I was little, I was the nerdy kid who was ready for summer break to be over by the end of July.
Now, as a college student, I've grown to enjoy my free time a little more, but I'm still the same kid at heart. As July turns into August, I start to miss using my brain and start wishing I was back at Denison with my friends, taking classes and doing research.
Of course, this desire always fades rapidly within the first week of the fall semester.
But this past semester really wore me out, and I thought that maybe things would be different this time around. Maybe a nice, long break would do me some good instead of just making me antsy.
This was not the case.
For the first few weeks, it was wonderful staying up late reading trashy magazines instead of library books for my research paper.
It was bliss to be able to wake up late without fear of sleeping through all my classes for the day. It's been awesome hanging out with my family and friends.
But now that everyone's back at college and my little brother is in school all day, I've got a bad case of cabin fever.
Thankfully, my break hasn't been entirely unproductive - I've been working for the newspaper I interned with last summer, and in the meantime I'm trying to find myself another internship for next summer so I don't have to worry about it while I'm in Germany.
But other than those semi-professional endeavors, I've been sitting on my butt, to be brutally honest. And it's stopped feeling so great to be doing so little.
Thankfully, I'll be leaving two weeks from when this issue of The Denisonian is published, so I actually have to start getting ready now.
I've started doing some last-minute shopping for things I still need for the trip, and I've begun making my packing lists.
So I'm almost ready to leave. Almost.
But until then, if you've got any advice for how to cure this boredom, please let me know.
Check out Jessica's study-abroad blog at http://web.me.com/jessicatrumbull.
Jessica arrives in Freiberg, Germany on February 24th.
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