To most college students, Spring Break is a right of passage and a historic tradtion. Hell, there are even multiple movies that have been made which depict what the specifically college experience of going somewhere tropical to drink with a huge group of your friends on the beach is supposed to be like.
For me, I always imagined that my senior year I would be one of the 20-30 students from my school who made the trip down to Cancun just as I had watched all my older firends in years before me do.
My Freshmen, Sophomore and Junior years in college, I stayed at school and worked throughout the spring breaks, justifying that if I saved up enough now, I could treat myself and ball out for my Senior Year Spring Break.
I ended up going to Las Vegas instead with just one of my very best friends (Sidenote: I CANNOT reccoment enough NOT going on a trip with a large group of people) and ended up having the best week of my life. We stayed at the Palms resort – the one you see on Keepping Up With the Kardashians, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and the classic Girls Next Door. We had VIP nearly every night we went out and most nights ended up with free bottle service (Sidenote again: This is why I reccomend going to Vegas in very small groups of girls if you’re on a budget)
In short, I was living the high life and I felt like I was in a whole other world. It made all the waiting and saving up worth it.
Our Spring Break is earlier than most, so when we came back to reality, most of the other schools in the U.S. were just embarking for yours. All over Facebook and Twitter I kept seeing tweets and memes saying things like “I’m sending FAFSA your exotic Spring Break pictures so they see where their money is actually going” and hearing people who only work 1 job outside of classes, or maybe none at all saltily saying “Wow must be nice to be able to go off and stay at a hotel on the beach for a week”
I realized freshman year that this was a trip I wanted to take, so early on I made the decision to work for it. I have work 2-3 jobs non-stop as well as being a full time student, and I know I’m not alone in this.
If Parks and Rec and Wiz Khalifa have taught us anything, it’s to treat yoself and to work hard, play hard. There’s no reason to feel guilty for rewarding yourself for your hard work.