Facing fatigue in the spring semester

As the weather warms and flocks of prospective students arrive on MSU’s campus, the student body seems listless. The usual energy that arrives with the warm weather is somewhat supressed this year and Spring Break, or the lack thereof, may be the culprit.

Spring Break as we know it began almost a century ago when college swim coaches began bringing their athletes to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, for a breather from the dreary weather of March in northern climates. By the 1960s, thousands of students flocked to Florida every spring, descending on various small beach communities and letting loose for a week or so before heading back north to finish out the semester. For current MSU students, Spring Break has been a component of every school year up until this one, and its absence has not gone unnoticed.

Spring Break is an opportunity to relax and reset for college students. Studying for weeks on end without a break can lead to burnout, a risk that is especially present in 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic forces many classes into online formats that tend to be more monotonous than in-class learning. To find out how the student body has been affected by this year’s missing break, The Exponent spoke to freshman Aidan Pendergast and senior Wace Christensen about Spring Break and burnout this semester. “Having a Spring Break is like a halfway-point to get you through, especially if you’re having a rough semester,” said Christensen. “You need that break because it just gets so repetitive.”

For freshmen like Pendergast, this year has flipped everything familiar about school upside down. Moving on from high school to college is difficult, and doing so in the midst of a pandemic is even more challenging. The absence of Spring Break only adds to that stress. “Even on the weekends I still had homework that I had to do, so I never had a prolonged break to help me reset my mental health,” Pendergast said.

The decision to cancel Spring Break at MSU was made chiefly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students traveling out of state and returning to campus increase the risk of an outbreak in Bozeman, and it is difficult to blame the Montana University System for making efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19. As of now, MSU plans to reinstate Spring Break in for the 2021-2022 school year. Hang in there Bobcats.