Spring Break Adventures

In college, spring break is almost a rite of passage. After the cold winter becomes a fleeting memory and the sun begins to beam down on college campuses across the country, undergraduates pack their bags and leave campus for a mid-semester hiatus from classes, right after the mess of midterms. Many head home, but others head to tropical destinations like Miami and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Spring semester junior year is when most University of Maryland students choose to study abroad, so I found that a great number of the juniors that stayed in College Park during the semester went to Europe to visit their friends studying abroad.

Emily Miller, a senior marketing major and technology entrepreneurship minor, told me about her “mini-abroad” spring break experience and what she normally does for spring break.

“I normally head to the west coast for spring break, California or Arizona,” Miller said. “But I couldn’t resist going to Europe to visit all of my friends who are studying abroad.”

Miller travelled to Dublin, Ireland and then explored Italy, visiting Florence, Rome and Milan.

“I celebrated my 21st birthday in Europe with all of my UMD friends, the ones that stayed in College Park with me and the ones studying in Europe and even saw some of my home friends in the different cities we went to,” Miller said.

Emily’s travel list is pretty cosmopolitan and definitely not cheap, so I also asked some people with less extravagant plans about their spring break adventures.

Junior information science major, Adam Benaim, went to Miami with his family and then drove up to visit friends at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.

“I spent spring break half with my family and then with some buddies in Charleston. It was nice to do both.”

Undergraduates are doing a plethora of different activities that range from international jaunts across Europe, to a quiet week at home, but the consensus is all the same: Spring break is a much needed time of relief from the crush of school work and responsibility students are feeling when summer is still too far away.

Below are some of Miller’s photos of her European adventure, sure to strike envy in anyone with the travel bug.