Tufts Blogs

A wonderful thing about college is that there’s so much time to do things. Unlike in high school where classes and activities are packed together, there’s time to breathe in between your classes and other pursuits. This applies to winter break as well. When I finished my last final on December 19th, I had a full month of break ahead of me. One full month! There’s only so much binge watching and laziness to go around. And unlike the summer, where getting a job or internship usually takes up time, I had no plans of working and wasn’t even thinking about internships as a first year just done with first semester. It’s rare to ever get free time like this, and I’ve made a list of things to do over break that I hope will help first years next year looking to plan ahead.

• Plan a trip with friends from high school. Air bnb makes it incredibly easy to find accommodations wherever you want to go, and with a group to split costs, an awesome trip can be very affordable. The independence of being able to plan a trip on your own will feel rewarding too for sure.
• Take advantage of Winter and hit the slopes. If you love to ski or snowboard and have access to a mountain, get your lift tickets ahead of time and get ready for no crowds and fresh powder, since most people are either working or in school. You can either go with family or friends and turn it into a trip.
• Visit friends at other colleges. Traveling to other colleges during the semester can be expensive and usually doesn’t work well with schedules, but during break you won’t have to worry about classes or school commitments. Most state schools or schools on the trimester system start the spring semester in early January, so there’s a solid three week window to visit for Tufts students.
• Explore a city near you if you can. I happen to live right outside Boston, so I tried to visit museums and neighborhoods that I hadn’t been to often. There’s plenty of time in a month to find something new in a place that may be familiar to you.
• Meet up with Tufts friends. Your friends at Tufts are going to be spending the most time with you in the next 4 years at school, but getting to know them out of a school context is awesome.

There are obviously so many other things to do over break, but these are just a few of the things I did that made my break fun and meaningful.