Every Poughkeepsie winter, thousands of college students leave Vassar College and do without classes for a forced month-long break. Luckily, after what feels like an eternity, the break ends and students begin to repopulate the campus.
Students engage in various forms of celebration to acknowledge their return to school. Residents of the THs uphold college tradition and welcome the return of morning classes by emptying all White Claw cans in a four mile radius. The Miscellany News asked TH 0.7’s Spiritual VP, Will
Asted ’17, about their celebration methods. “Yes, we are drinking because we are absolutely overjoyed to be returning for another damn semester,” said Asted. “That is why people drink, because life is good and they are having fun.” In times like these, such candidness is refreshing.
Conversely, residents of Cushing tend to prepare for the semester ahead of time by stocking up on 20-packs of pens and expensive journals they will definitely use at least once during the year. Accordingly, all their friends make sure to not buy a single pen or sheet of paper, and will instead mooch off them as long into the semester as possible.
Some returning traditions touch the entire campus. All Vassar students eventually make their textbook pilgrimage at the start of the semester to the college store, a building known for its reasonable pricing and highly-coveted Vassar themed grape lip gloss. Purchasing textbooks for each course is a requirement, because several hundred slices of tree you won’t actually read are definitely important and worth their triple digit price tags. Ronald Ippedoff ’22 told the Misc, “Getting textbooks is my favorite time of the year! It’s always a blast spending money I don’t have on books I don’t need for courses I don’t care about.”
Another common experience after break is deeply caring about what other people did during their time off. In the Deece, the natural habitat of people who go to the Deece, attentive listeners can hear hundreds of utterances of “how was your break?” that are guaranteed to be entirely sincere. One exception to this social pattern, however, is the Computer Science major, who can instead be found locked in their room doing their best to avoid all forms of human interaction.
Unfortunately, starting the new semester isn’t all fun and games (surprisingly). Dealing with jet lag, unpacking and adjusting to a new schedule are just a few of the issues students face after each break, and Vassar understands that. This is why residence halls open a whole three days before classes begin.
Returning to your dorm also means returning to its flaws. Noyesians have to face more midnight fire alarms than Raymondians face rats. Jewett people have to bear climbing up nine floors but still being beat by Lathrop for highest students. Mainians, or whatever the fuck they’re called, the most unlucky of the bunch, have to once again accept that they live in Main.
However, in the wake of everything great about returning, it’s no wonder these issues barely faze the resilient and determined Vassar population. After all, if there’s anything the Vassar student is known for, it’s their staunch refusal to complain about anything whatsoever.