By Heather Monahan
Copy Editor
“Why is your spring break so early?”
This question is the one I was asked most frequently while I was home for spring break last week, just ahead of, “What are you doing after you graduate?”
Luckily my answer was the same for both questions – a puzzled look and shrug of the shoulders to signify I had absolutely no idea whatsoever.
Out of the four collegiate spring breaks I’ve had at St. Bonaventure, only one of them has coincided with the breaks of my friends from other schools.
Understandably, a lot of Bonaventure students use the week to take vacations with their fellow Bonnies. But those of us who are tight on cash and want to reconnect with friends from home are left disappointed and doomed to surf the couch all week, watching old television re-runs and binge-watching Netflix.
According to tripsmarter.com, Bonaventure shares its spring break week with just ten other colleges nationwide. Altogether, those eleven schools account for over 91 thousand students on spring break last week. That may seem like a lot, but the number pales in comparison to the 664 thousand students on break this week, the two and a half million on break March 10-14 and the nearly one and a half million on break March 17-21.
“Our break is weird because it’s not Presidents Day week, but it’s not one of the weeks in March either,” Chris Spiker, senior journalism and mass communication major, said.
Mark Belcher, another senior journalism and mass communications major, explained his frustrations as well, stating that his two high school-aged siblings were still on winter break the week prior to St. Bonaventure’s spring break.
This brings up another problem with having spring break at such an odd time. As my time at college dwindles down and the stress of moving out and getting a full-time job looms, nothing sounds better than getting away from it all and spending some time with my family before I (potentially) leave the nest this summer. But with my brother studying at a SUNY school, therefore having spring break at a normal time in mid-March, it’s impossible. Neither of us can miss a full week of classes for a family vacation, no matter how tempting it sounds.
Spiker also said he has a problem with how spring break conflicts with the basketball schedule. I’m sure many students on campus would agree.
“It prevents our students from traveling to the Atlantic 10 basketball championships,” Spiker said. “If our team does well, we can’t watch them play.”
With tournament play opening up for the women tonight and possibly Wednesday for the men, not many students can make it to Richmond or New York City to support our teams due to lack of transportation as well as on-campus commitments. If either of our teams make it to the NCAA, the same problem will arise.
While I understand it would be next to impossible to have all universities correspond their spring breaks to each other, all I ask is that Bonaventure really considers making break just a few weeks later.
Heather Monahan is the copy editor for The Bona Venture. Her email is monahahm10@bonaventure.edu.
