For most college students, fall break is the first time they get to go back home since the start of the semester. It’s a few days to rest and rejuvenate before getting back to school and hitting the books again. Regardless of the time of year, there are positives and negatives to going home to visit family.
First, is seeing your family. If you haven’t seen them in a while, spending a few days with your parents, siblings, and maybe your dog that you haven’t seen is really nice. This quality family time is more few and far between as we get older so I definitely take advantage of any opportunity to be with my parents and younger siblings. As awesome as this is, maybe by the end of the few days of break you start to remember why you love being at school. The rules of home (and your parents always asking you what you’re doing) makes you crave the freedoms of college life again.
If you’re lucky, maybe a few of your friends have the same break too. That means break can be a time to hang out and catch up. This is definitely great, but the monotony of home life might make you wish you guys could go out to a party or do something more exciting than the social activities you did in high school.
The food is definitely a major plus of being home. I always miss my moms home cooked meals. My takeout, or poorly executed cooking at school does not compare. Family dinners are a huge thing about home that I always miss, too. At school not everyone’s always on the same schedule, and sitting down to eat a home-cooked meal with my roommates is a rarity. The one downside of experiencing this luxury at home is in comparison, my own cooking seems even worse when I get back to school.
Another bonus of being home is being able to drive. At school, I always walk everywhere and it’s never easy to get around. Even going to the grocery store is harder here- you can only buy what you can carry. At home, it’s effortless to get everywhere. The only downside of this is I do far less physical activity. At school I’ll walk usually around 3 miles a day- at home my FitBit clocks in at barely a mile!
My bed – enough said. I miss my bed so much when I’m at school. Being back in my old room where I spent the majority of my childhood is so nice. I’m not sure there is a negative to this one.
Taking a break from school and studying is another positive of being home for break. However, a downside of this is it’s not always possible to do. Sometimes professors schedule exams for directly after fall break. In which case, you either have to spend some of your “R&R” time studying, or you have to catch up on a ton of work when you get back to campus.
Going home for break definitely has its pluses and minuses- but at the end of the day, it’s nice to be able to go home and spend some time with family.