Psychology Behind Reckless Spring Break

I would have to respectfully disagree with Dr. Russell. Let me rephrase, I strongly disagree with Dr. Russell. As someone who has been on numerous Spring Breaks in a variety of different locations (from Florida to Cancun, even spending a spring break here in Cedar Falls), I have seen the “worst-of-the-worst.” I have been there and experienced Spring Break to the fullest and have participated in the events. It’s not as bad as the media drags it out to be. I’ve seen a lot of crazy things on spring break and ironically, some of the crazier things I’ve seen weren’t from college kids. They were from the “hip-cool” 55-year-old who decides to take a week off work and hang out with a bunch of college kids during spring break. As we transition ourselves from pre-adults to adults, our behavior becomes more reflective of the person inside. I’m not going to expect the freshman from Small-Town Iowa who has never been on their own to instantly pick up on all these societal pressures the minute they step into college. It’s a learning experience and like anything else it comes with time. Coming from someone who is a student leader on campus, I am CLOSELY looked at from microscope for my behavior on campus and because of that I am very self-conscious about how the decisions I make reflect me as a student leader. Not only am I the president of a student group on campus, I also have the pleasure of giving campus tours for UNI. That being said, I am very watchful and aware of my behavior on and off campus. Now I chose to be a student leader and love my responsibilities as such, but I feel that sometimes people expect TOO much out of us. One would argue it comes with the responsibility of being a student leader but the key word in that sentence is “student.” We are still students and are still developing as adults; we can’t pretend to have it all down all the time. College students should be allowed to make their own mistakes. If we are constantly worrying about what Mr. PHD thinks about us then we suddenly become this artificial robot who is afraid of making mistakes. We are being forced into adult-hood from the moment we step on campus and with technology continuing to change we become more and more closely watched under societies microscope. I proudly wear my student leader uniforms and my UNI gear, but at the end of the day, when I take my uniform off, I’d like to be able to relax and not constantly be on “interview mode.” We are being held to such a high standard by employers and others who just want us to “just grow up already”. “You had some fun in High School, but now it’s time to trade in your flip-flops and hacky sacks for a dress suit and polished resume.” With the job market as it is, students are becoming so pressured that they are afraid of making mistakes. What people like Dr. Russell are forgetting is that the whole point of college is to learn, and unfortunately we learn more from our mistakes than anything else. Of course, there are exceptions to the rules and I am in no way advocating any of the behavior that occurs over spring break. But the fact of the matter is that the second spring break is over, our butts are back in those desks working hard to be that “model student” that every employer wants to see in an interview. For one week a year, can we be human again? It won’t be long anyway until we are in the real world and half of us become mindless drones of the corporate world, just let us have that week. As for me, I will gladly be hanging up my suit & tie, hitting the beach, and making life-long memories with friends that I won’t soon forget.

P.S: A lesson in humility? Society couldn’t possibly do more to make college kids look like drunk, irresponsible, adolescents. I know I’ve made some dumb mistakes in my day but we were all freshman once… I’d like to see what Dr. Russell’s freshman year of college was like. After all, he wasn’t always a PHD.