Maybe some of us have started thinking of spring madness, but it hasn’t moved to action yet. However, knowing that it’s only halfway through winter quarter, a story in The New York Times is already proclaiming the arrival of spring break and announcing the inevitable college trips.
Tamar Lu, travel adviser for the branch of STA Travel on campus said, “There are a lot of people coming in here to ask about spring break. They ask about Europe, Mexico and Hawaii, but the most popular destination is Mexico.”
Spring break is apparently one of the high points of college culture, but how true do the stereotypes hold?
I personally don’t know anyone heading south for some well-deserved insanity, and that bothers me.
“I haven’t tried to make any plans,” said Helen Nguyen, a second-year undeclared life sciences student. “Most people just go home for spring break, and I’m excited to do that. I am tired of school and need some time off.”
Many people might go home, but pretending that they will be floating ecstatically in Mexico is more in the interest of corporate America. The general public outlook on college students crossing the border is that they will engage in the normative beach activities and return the same as they left.
“They call them spring-breakers in Mexico, and people usually get really upset when they come,” says Jessica Rojas, a first-year Design | Media Arts student who has family in Mexico and frequently visits there.
“College students have a bad reputation there; everyone thinks that all they have come to do is drink.”
But when I asked her if she knew anyone planning that kind of spring break, she shook her head in denial.
Where are these busloads of frantic collegiate ne’er-do-wells racing to hop the border?
What I have come to realize is that spring break is a bizarre business gimmick. The newspapers and travel agencies seem to pump out myths of Mexican paradise trips to incite people to jump on the bandwagon.
In reality, the number of students exercising their spring-break rights seems to be minimal.
Personally, I come from a very pro-couch-festering camp, and a long period of serious immobility is kind of a positive asset to a vacation after this quarter.
However, taking advantage of spring break might not be terrible.
“I don’t really subscribe to the craziness, but I understand that it could be a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing. However … if we were truly creative, we would think of something more creative,” said Jojo Yang, a second-year English student.
But, just to show that not all college kids are either completely frustrated and planning on vegetating at home or under the spell of MTV spring propaganda, take the example of Richard Hart, a fourth-year astrophysics student who is planning to go to Malaga, Spain, for spring break.
“Spring break can be about relaxing, but as college students we need more to vent ““ that is just our way,” he said.
Mike Luong, a fourth-year political science student, ascribes to the last-minute train of thought.
“I think that doing something on the spur of the moment makes it … hot,” he said.
Taking everyone I have talked to into consideration, I continue to feel that my initial belief about the travel conspiracy still stands. Making you think everyone is flying off to a vodka wonderland with screwdriver-yellow beaches is just another advertising campaign. It’s called Primitive 100 Percent Consent: you automatically believe something because everyone else is under its spell. Making the transition from belief to action to writing checks is not such a farfetched one.
The couch, the refrigerator and the clothes that somehow magically wash themselves are amazing things to return to after winter quarter (which pretty much manages to be the worst quarter of the year).
But that doesn’t mean it’s what you want every break, every free day of your life. Shaking out of your homeostasis before returning to a routine is necessary, too.
So whatever your preference, avoid lemming tendencies and try to walk off the cliff on your own volition.
Send rjoshi@media.ucla.edu postcards from home. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.